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PRINCETON,N. J. 


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BT 1101 .M36 1889a 
Mair, Alexander, 1834- 
Studies in the Christian 


evidences 


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CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


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MORNINGSIDE, EDINBURGH, 


SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 


Mii CANI TRACT SOCIETY, 


I50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 


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THIS book is not written primarily for professional 
students, whether theological or scientific, though it is 
hoped that even readers of this class may find it not 
altogether uninteresting or unworthy of their notice. It 
is written expressly for that section of our intelligent 
Church members and adherents whose minds have been 
brought into contact with the religious doubts and diffi- 
culties of the age, and have in some measure felt them ; 
and not less for those who, as Christian teachers and 
counsellors, are called on from time to time to deal with 
such doubts and difficulties as they arise in the minds 
of others. 

The special design of the book has to a great degree 
determined its character. It is not meant to be a 
‘System of Christian Evidences ;’ for, as a rule, such 
treatises, from their very nature, are far too minute and 
full for the readers in view. Its purpose is rather to | 
take up some of those points which are not only funda- 
mental, but at the same time well fitted to meet the 


vi PREFACE. 


wants of the day, and which are easily grasped by an 
intelligent mind. I need scarcely say that the object 
specially aimed at accounts for the greater fulness of 
statement and use of colour and illustration than might 
in other circumstances have seemed necessary. It further 
explains why the different studies, even at the risk of 
a little repetition, have been made as self-contained as 
possible, in order that they may admit of being read 
independently of each other. 

The particular position taken up in the book is to be 
carefully noted. It starts from Theism, or the belief in 
a personal God, as its accepted basis. Its design is to 
aid in removing obstacles out of the way, and in con- 
ducting the earnest reader from the position of Theism 
into the central truths of the Christian religion, and a 
reasonable faith therein. It will be understood that 
it lies quite beyond its sphere to attempt any full 
and systematic statement of the different doctrines of 
Christianity. 

In a department which has been so long and so fully 
investigated by able thinkers, but little that is new can 
be expected. I have, of course, gone over the whole 
field in my own way; at the same time, it has been part 
of my deliberate purpose to make a free use of available 
material, and so to work it up as to meet present 
needs and forms of thought. Accordingly much that 
I have attempted to say has been well said by others 


| 


SS 


ee 


PREFACE. Vii 


previously ; but wherever there is conscious indebted- 
ness calling for notice, it is acknowledged. Wherever 
a quotation is of any length, or of special importance 
for the argument, the reference is carefully given. 
Wherever it has been deemed desirable to illustrate a 
point at length by quotations, this has been done in 
the Appendix. 

In issuing a SECOND EDITION I have availed myself 
of the opportunity presented of submitting the whole 
work to a careful revision. While the curtailments have 
been few and unimportant, I have added a new study— 
the sixth—entitled, ‘Some Recent Reverses of Negative 
Criticism,’ and have also inserted several fresh paragraphs 
in the body of the work as well as in the Appendix. 


MORNINGSIDE, EDINBURGH, 
September 1889. 


COIN UA EuIN CL 9: 


I, 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 


PAGE 
Present Unbelief not greater than that of last Century—Springs 


from the ‘ Spirit of the Age’—And the Prevalence of Scientific 
Methods—Assumes the form of Agnosticism or Materialistic 
Atheism—Some Men Atheists and Materialists by Conviction— 
Atheism sometimes springs from Moral Causes—Foremost 
Scientific Men not generally Materialists—The mere Scientific 
Specialist no Authority in Theology or Criticism—Rejection of 
the Supernatural in the New Testament sometimes a Question 
determined beforehand—Physical Science cannot reach Re- 
ligious Truth—Its Instruments cannot discover it—Its Field is 
different — Border - lands — Bible Narrative of Creation— 
Genesis i, the Religious Charter of Science—Order of 
Creation a Question of Science—Genesis i. not yet proved 
wrong—Development Hypothesis—Evolution only a Mode of 
Working, and not a Cause—Slowness of Process makes no 
essential Difference—Evolution not yet proved scientifically — 
Christians should accept Real Discoveries of Science with 
Gratitude—Christianity readily adjusts itself to Real Discoveries 
—Our Attitude towards Science. : : : : I 


x CONTENTS. 


eh, 


Or INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 


PAGE 
There are Intellectual Difficulties in Religion—Such to be expected 


—Belief depends on Evidence and not on Comprehension— 
Difficulties arise from the Objects contemplated in Religion— 
God—Who is Spirit—And Infinite—Man and the Mystery in 
him—Difficulties also arise from the Finiteness of Man’s Mind— 
Treatment of such Difficulties—We must recognise the Limits 
of Human Thought—New Testament not to be rejected be- 
cause of Difficulties—The Mysterious not necessarily Uncertain 
—We must receive the Doctrines on the Evidence—Other 
Systems have their Greater Difficulties—The Moral Use of 
such Difficulties, : ; : ; : : 34 


AE 


Or REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, AND THE DIFFICULTIES 
CONNECTED THEREWITH. 


Man by Nature a Religious Being—Natural to Expect a Religion 
to meet his Wants—Religious Instincts not met in mere Nature 
—Light of Nature not enough to guide—A ‘ Book-Revelation’ 
not impossible—A ‘Theory of Inspiration not necessary or 
logically possible at this Stage—Not the First Doctrine to be 
presented to the Anxious—Three Positions possible—Literal 
Inspiration—Religious Inspiration—That the Writers were 
Trustworthy Witnesses — Even this last is sufficient for 
Reasonable Certainty and Salvation—Care to be taken in 
presenting a Rigid Theory of Inspiration at the Outset—Im- 
portance of remembering the Special Purpose for which the 
Bible was given—Objection considered, that even Inspiration 


has not given Certainty—Real Unity of the Church, . : 52 


CONTENTS. xi 


LYV.. 


EARLY HISTORICAL TESTIMONY TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE 


NEW TESTAMENT. 


PAGE 
Subject stated—Christianity a Revelation in the Past, and hence 


room for Historical Evidence—New ‘Testament generally 
accepted on the United Testimony of the Divided Church— 
Reasonableness of this—Authenticity of the New Testament a 
Question outside of Physical Science—Ancient Manuscripts 
cited as Witnesses—Church of the Second Half of the Second 
Century, A.D. 150 to 200—Fathers and Versions—Church of 
France, Irenzeus Representative Witness—Church of Italy, 
Muratorian Canon, Ancient Latin Version, Hippolytus— 
Northern Africa, Tertullian—Egypt, Clement of Alexandria— 
Syria, Peshito—Asia Minor—Evidence summed up—Continuity 
of the Church—Fate of the Later Works of Aristotle— 
Period from A.D. I00 to A.D. 150-—Witnesses cited—The 
General Decision of the Church remains, and not all the 
Evidence—The Heretics and their Testimony—New Testament 
could not have been forged in the Second Century—General 


Conclusion, ; : F : ; ‘ ; 73 


Vv. 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 


Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Revelation 
accepted by Negative Critics—The First Four Epistles of Paul 
—Testimony of Baur—Renan—Author of Swernatural Re- 
ligion—These Four Epistles a sure Foundation—Character of 
Paul, the Witness—Thoroughly tested—He had the best — 
Means of knowing the Facts—A Martyr for acts and not 
Opinions—His Testimony includes the Supernatural—Chietf 


X1i 


CONTENTS. 


Facts of our Lord’s Life—Doctrine as to His Person—Chief 
Doctrines of Christianity—Christian Ethics—The Church— 
Evidence strengthened by the Churches with which Paul stood 
in Close Relation—Supported by the Revelation of John— 


Tiibingen School giving up its Position—Practical Conclusion, 


VI. 


SoME RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 


Subject stated—Only about One-Fourth of the New Testament 


accepted by Baur and immediate followers as genuine— 
Recent Discoveries, etc., fall in with the Church’s Belief in 
regard to the New Testament—The Epistle of Barnabas— 
The Refutation of all Heresies, by Hippolytus—Testimony of 
the Clementine Homilies to John-—Tatian’s Diatessaron— 
The Gospel of Marcion—General Survey of the Retreat of 
Negative Criticism—Specially in regard to the Four Gospels— 
Three-Fourths of the New Testament accepted as genuine— 
The Battle of Criticism had to be fought—Victory in view, 


NETS 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 


What is a Miracle?—Not a Violation of the Laws of Nature— 


Importance of Miraculous Element in Christianity—Christianity 
the only great Religion that ever came claiming to be 
authenticated by Miracles—A Revelation to be expected— 
Miracles the most Direct Proof of a Revelation—Object of 
Christ’s Miracles—Miracles not impossible—Physical Science 
cannot prove them to be impossible—Intelligent Voluntary 
Action has in it the essential elements of a Miracle—We 


cannot explain the Mode—Miracles not Incredible—Hume’s 


PAGE 


108 


137 


CONTENTS. Xiil 


PAGE 
Argument from ‘ Experience’ discussed—Does any one really 


believe in the Christian Miracles?—Kind of Evidence to be 
expected — Renan’s Conditions of a satisfactory Miracle— 
Christ’s Miracles interwoven with the Narrative and Teaching— 
They fit into the Personality of Christ—‘ Signs ’—-What they 


imply, . : ° . . ° : rs tee Cy 


Pere 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES IN THE NEW 
TESTAMENT, 


Question stated—Assuming the Authenticity of the Chief Books, 
the Testimony is abundant—Inquiry restricted to the Four 
Unquestioned Epistles of Paul— Drift of Paul’s Testimony 
obvious—Special Revelations—His Vision of Christ—Gift of 
Tongues—Gifts of Healings—Explicit Testimony to Miracles 
in general—2 Cor. xii. 12 discussed—Miracles performed by 
other Apostles and in other Churches— Paul’s Testimony 
practically that of the Church—Summing up, . ‘ =, 409 


IX, 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, AND WHAT IT IMPLIES. 


Saying of Talleyrand—Importance of the fact of Christ’s Resurrec- 
tion—Kind of proof to be expected—Resurrection harmonizes 
with the Person and Character of Christ—Foretold by Christ— 
Testimony of the Roman Soldiers—Of the Apostles—Of the 
Acts—Of Peter—Of John—Of Paul in his Four Unquestioned 
Epistles—1 Cor. xv. 3-8 considered—Paul’s Vision of Christ— 
Change produced in the Apostles—Early Success of the Church | 
—The Lord’s Day—Various Hypotheses adopted for explaining 
away the Resurrection—What it. implies, ; ‘ ee 


XiV 


CONTENTS. 


X. 


THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE UNIQUE 
PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 


Influence of Christ on the History of the World—Christ the Source 


of Power—His Peculiar Relation to Christianity—A Difficult 
Problem to Unbelievers—The Christ of the Synoptics and the 
Christ of John—Christ unique in His Sinlessness—Trans- 
cendent Power of His Personality shown by its Influence on 
the Apostles—His Teaching—His Kingdom— Universality of 
His Purpose—Himself the Cornerstone—Method adopted to 
establish His Kingdom—His Plan mature from the beginning 
_The Various Elements harmonize in Christ—He cannot be 
an Evolution of Natural Forces--Cannot be a mere Fiction— 
His Moral Character implies that His Claim must be well 


founded—His Divinity—Conclusion, 


XI. 


SomME IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES, AND THE ARGUMENT 


THEREFROM. 


Argument stated—Peculiarities in the Christian Line of History— 


Monotheism of the Jews—The Sacred Books—Preservation 
of the Jewish People—This prophesied—Christ came among 
this People—This also prophesied—And expected by the Jews 
The Fulness of the Time—Planting of the Church—Spread 
of the Church—This also prophesied — Corruption of the 
Church prophesied—Prophecy of the Destruction of Jerusalem 
—The Lord’s Supper and what it teaches — Mathematical 
Theory of Probabilities applied—Mode of Argument adopted 


by Antagonists—Conclusion, 


PAGE 


248 


279 


CONTENTS. XV 


XII. 


CHRISTIANITY PROVING ITSELF BY THE PRINCIPLE OF THE 
‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST,’ 


PAGE 
Principle stated—Applied to Christianity—Its Triumphal Survival 


in the Struggle with Judaism and Ancient Paganism — Its 
Power not spent, as shown by Modern Missions—Progress of 
Christianity in Modern as compared with Ancient Times—lIts 
Power shown by the Regeneration of the Lowest Races—By 
its Success in the Struggle with the Highest Forms of Modern 
Heathenism — By the Effect on Morality — Atheism and 
National Decline—Argument not affected by the Evils caused 
or supposed to have been caused by Christianity—Its Power 
compared with that of Modern Speculative Systems—Sources 
of its Power—It gives a Reasonable Certainty—Is in direct 
Contact with God—The Person of Christ—Its ‘ Fitness’ or 
Adaptation to Man—The Motive Power which it brings to 
bear upon the Soul—The Joy which it inspires—Its Power of 
Assimilation and Self-Adaptation—It has God on its side— 
Conclusion, ; ; ‘ ; ; ‘ nn 80g 


INDEX, 


Aw aL NG 1D see 


. State of Religion in England in the Eighteenth Century, 
. The Scientific Specialist not necessarily an Authority in 


Theology or Criticism, 


. Religious Truth beyond the Reach “Of Physical Bienes 

. The Bible not a Revelation of Science, ; 

. Evolution not necessarily inconsistent with Theism, 

. Evolution only an Hypothesis and not an ascertained 


Truth of Science, 


. Hodge and Baxter in regard to spivation’ : 
. Quotations from the New Testament found in the Fathers, 
. J. S. Mill on Miracles as a ‘ Violation of Law,’ 

. The Mode of Divine Intervention in Miracles, 

. Isaac Taylor on the Argument from Congruity, 

. Miracles naturally to be expected of Christ, 

. Alleged Evidential Unimportance of the Resurrection of 


Christ, 


. The Theory of Probabilities Sastre to the Ryden: ey 


Christ’s Resurrection, 


. Hase on the Socrates of Xenophon Son Plato, 

. The truly Just Man as described in Plato’s Republic, 

. Testimonies to the Character of Jesus, , 

. A Perfect Moral Character contrary to Experience, 

. The Independence and Convergence of the Christian 


Evidences, 


. Statistics bearing on the ‘Aled Tecune of Marelity in 


Germany, 


. The Sadness of iAthelais 


PAGE 


341 


342 
343 
343 
344 


348 
352 
353 
356 
357 


359 
361 


362 


363 
366 
366 
367 
383 


384 


386 
388 


391 


Swe se DNS EE C ERIS TEAN 
EV IEIN © ES: 


is 
CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 


THAT there is in the present age, both within and 
without the Church, a decline of faith in the grand 
facts and doctrines of Christianity, is a remark so 
common as to seem to not a few to be the merest 
commonplace. It is at once the lamentation of many 
Christians on the one hand, and the exultant boast 
of many unbelievers on the other. And it is not 
to be denied that the age has its own share of sceptical 
tendencies and positive unbelief, whether existing in the 
more formulated or more unformulated state. Indeed, 
it would be both eminently weak and dangerous to 
deny it; for we can guard against the evil only by 
knowing what it is, and can rectify it only by discover- 


ing where it lurks, and what are the means to be used 
A 


2 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


by way of correction. Still, we have the best reason for 
being assured that there is by no means a more deep 
and wide-spread unbelief existing in the country at the 
present day than has existed in some previous ages ; for 
example, the greater portion of the preceding century. 
Of course the unbelief of the present is apt to seem to 
us much more intense and widely diffused than that of 
the past, just because in the one case the cloud is right 
overhead, and we feel its baleful shadow, whereas in the 
other we see it only in the distance, like a dark streak 
on the horizon. But if we compare the testimony of 
competent witnesses, who lived in the central eclipse of 
eighteenth century unbelief, with the state of things in 
the present age, we shall find but little reason to believe 
that ‘the former days were better than these. Addison 
declares it to be an unquestionable fact in his time, 
that there was ‘less appearance of religion in England 
than in any neighbouring state or kingdom,’ whether 
Protestant or Roman Catholic.’ Judge Blackstone, a 
thoroughly competent and trustworthy witness, has left 
it on record, that ‘having a curiosity to know how 
matters stood in regard to religion, he went to every 
London church of note, but could not have discovered 
from what he heard whether the preacher was a follower 
of Confucius, or of Mahomet, or of Christ.2 This is a 


1See Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 545. 
* See Contemporary Review, March 1880, p. 515. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 3 


statement sufficiently suggestive; and we may safely 
affirm that no man could say anything approaching to 
it in regard to the churches of London or Edinburgh at 
the present day. 

In the case of many in connection with the Church 
whose minds are in a somewhat uncertain state, this 
uncertainty has arisen, not so much from definite and 
positive arguments against Christianity, as from a par- 
ticular tone of mind and way of looking at religious 
things. If they examine their own consciousness, pro- 
bably they will not find positive, formulated reasons 
present to it, on which they are resting for support of 
their scepticism. The cause is of a more subtle kind, 
whether we call it the ‘spirit of the age, or by some 
other name. The literature in which such men indulge 
is of a sceptical tendency, perhaps flavoured with insinua- 
tions and sneers against religion and all very pronounced 
religious life and work. The influence of this reading 
is not unlikely backed up and intensified by the special 
atmosphere of the society which they keep. And 
living and moving and having their being in such an 
air, they find the result to be only too certain. Not 
more surely does the hand take the colour of the dye in 
which it is daily working; not more surely does the 
body become deteriorated in health by the infectious or 
unwholesome atmosphere which it breathes, than the 


1 See Appendix, Note I. 


4. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


mind, by the very laws of its nature, becomes lowered, 
chilled, enfeebled in its tone of faith by such influences. 
It may be the case that men who are confirmed in the 
faith, and can discount such unhealthy literature at its 
true worth, may pass through such reading unscathed ; 
but for those whose minds are yet in the plastic state, 
the state of formation, it is almost impossible to escape 
without receiving more or less of subtle injury. 

Another source whence this widespread feeling of 
uncertainty arises may be found in the modes of proof, 
and the tests of certainty, which are in the highest 
favour in our day. The present age, as compared with 
any of the past, is pre-eminently the age of physical 
science. Thescientific methods, with their instruments of 
research, have attained to solid and splendid results, and 
hence the tendency is to look on such methods as the 
only trustworthy and legitimate kind of proof. Not more 
surely were the Middle Ages the era of Scholasticism, 
and the favourite mode of proof that of the scholastic 
logic, than the present age is the era of science and 
scientific proof. Accordingly, men seek, and expect to 
have, scientific methods of proof for everything in 
religion ; and what cannot be so proved, they are only too 
ready to relegate to the limbo of mere myth and fable. 
They forget that so-called scientific proof cannot possibly 
be had for everything ; cannot possibly be had for things 
which lie beyond the special and legitimate domain of 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 5 


physical science. They forget that, from the very nature 
of things, scientific proof is restricted just as specially to 
physical truth, as mathematical proof is to mathematics, 
or historical proof to historical events, or proof by con- 
sciousness to our states of mind, or proof by moral 
intuition to principles or actions as right or wrong. 
When we pass outside the Church, we find not a few 
of the philosophers and scientific men of our day taking 
up the position of Agnosticism. This forms a kind of 
half-way house between Christianity and positive dis- 
belief, and means that man cannot attain to any certain 
knowledge of God and the supernatural world. Whether 
there is a God or not, and if there be, what He is; 
whether there is a supernatural world or not, and if there 
be, what it is, the consistent Agnostic declares he does 
not, cannot know. It is, however, very difficult to carry 
out consistently a thoroughgoing Agnosticism ; and even 
Herbert Spencer, whom Agnostics speak of as ‘our great 
philosopher, finds it by no means easy to do so. It is 
true he calls the Mystery which takes the place of God 
in his system the Unknowable, but when he enters into 
details it appears that after all he does know a good 
deal about it. He knows it as actually existent,—as 
Energy, as Infinite and Eternal, the Ultimate and 
Unconditioned Reality, the Ultimate Cause. ‘Belief in 
its existence has, among our beliefs, the highest validity 
of any,’ and ‘duty requires us neither to affirm nor deny 


6 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


personality in regard to it. The ‘choice is not between 
personality and something lower than personality,’ but 
‘between personality and something higher;’ for the 
‘Ultimate Power is no more representable in terms of 
human consciousness, than human consciousness is in 
terms of a plant’s functions. Furthermore, it is in a 
sense true, that ‘by this Infinite and Eternal Energy 
all things are created and sustained, and it ‘stands 
towards our general conception of things in substantially 
the same relation as does the Creative Power asserted 
by theology.’ In short, the Unknowable is the Ultimate 
Reality, higher than mere human personality, infinite, 
eternal, and unchangeable in being, power, and activity, 
the First Cause, the Creator and Preserver of all things. 
Evidently the philosopher of Agnosticism knows a great 
deal about the Unknowable, and it is even difficult to 
see why his fullest utterances might not cover a very 
genuine Theism.t 

The prevailing unbelief of the age, however, goes 
further than a consistent Agnosticism, and manifests 
itself largely as Atheism or Materialism. It may 
assume various phases and different names, but ulti- 
mately it comes very much to the same thing. It 
culminates in the express denial of a personal God,—a 
God possessed of self-consciousness, intelligence, moral 


1 See especially the Wznetcenth Century for July 1884, article on ‘ Retro- 
gressive Religion.’ First Principles, pp. 108 ff. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 7 


nature, and free-will. As such, we may call it Atheism. 
But Atheism is only a negative word, and gives merely 
the negative view of the typical modern unbelief. It 
also aspires to a positive name, and the possession of a 
positive theory of the universe. That name and theory 
is Materialism, according to which the ultimate source 
and explanation of all things is to be found in matter 
and force. Even the Pantheism which is held as a 
theory by some philosophers, is practically reducible 
to the same thing. Though it may assume various 
phases, in every case it distinctly implies the denial of a 
personal God, just as really as Materialism. It may 
speak of God, but it does not mean by the name a really 
personal Being. It means at the most only a great 
blind nature-power, impulse, or ‘stream of tendency, 
pressing itself onward and outward in the universe, 
somewhat like the unintelligent life of a tree. For all 
practical purposes—and it is in this aspect especially 
that we have to deal with it at present—it is the same 
thing as atheistic Materialism. It believes in no God 
but nature and the universe, with its totality of matter 
and force. The universe is its own creator, preserver, 
and governor. But as Materialism is the theory more 
easily and vividly grasped, just because it appeals more 
directly to the bodily senses, it is, and is likely to be, at 
least for some time to come, the most wide-spread form 
of unbelief. 


8 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


There are some who doubt whether there is any such 
thing as a genuine Atheist or Materialist in the world. 
They think that such a character is a moral and intel- 
lectual impossibility. But this is a grave mistake. We 
have no right as Christians to insinuate or believe that 
all Atheists or Materialists are mere hollow pretenders, 
professing for some small reason or other to be such, 
when in reality they are not. We have no reason to 
doubt that there are many Materialists as genuine and 
strong in their particular convictions as honest Christians 
are in theirs. It may indeed seem to us incredible, as 
we look on the human person, soul and body, with all its 
wonderful and complicated arrangements, order, and 
adaptation of means to end, that any one can consider 
it seriously and thoughtfully, and suppose that it could 
have come into being without a working intelligence 
behind it. It may seem to us not less incredible that 
any fair mind can contemplate the mathematical order 
existing everywhere in the universe without inferring the 
presence of an intelligent God therein, just as it would 
seem to us incredible that a mathematician, cast upon 
the shore of an unknown island, could discover the figure 
of one of Euclid’s propositions on the sand without 
at once inferring the recent presence of civilised man. 
All this, we repeat, may seem to us well-nigh incredible. 
Nevertheless, it would be utterly wrong to rush to the 
conclusion that men who deny the existence of a 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 9 


personal God, and attribute everything to mere matter, 
do not truly believe what they profess to believe. There 
are genuine Materialists and Atheists, men who are 
such by intellectual conviction, by virtue of reasons 
which seem sufficient to their logical understanding. 
No doubt they may be misled by some mental twist, 
idiosyncrasy, or bias, or by taking a very one-sided 
view of the evidence ; but the fact is not the less a fact. 
The human mind can reason itself into convictions, 
which are not only paradoxical, but even directly 
contrary to its instinctive and primary beliefs. For 
example, we may safely say, that belief in the existence 
of an external world is one of our instinctive and 
primary beliefs; and yet there have been men of 
the highest philosophic power and character, who have 
doubted, or even denied, the existence of the external 
world. In like manner, we should not be astonished to 
find men who absolutely deny the existence of God, who 
passionately declare that there is and can be no such 
being as God, though His existence may seem to us 
to be an instinctive and primary belief, necessarily 
awakened in us by the intelligent contemplation of the 
universe. 

But while Christian charity leads us to make the 
above statement, truth at the same time requires us to 
make a counter-statement, There can be just as little 
doubt that Atheism often springs from moral causes ; 


Ke) STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


from the heart more than from the head; from the 
moral character more than from the force of reason. 
A. man, we shall suppose, has sunk into selfishness and 
indulgence in sin, perhaps even in sensual vice. He has 
a deep, real, all but irresistible liking for his favourite 
pleasure or besetting sin. It is the desire of his heart, 
the thought of his mind, the picture of his imagination, 
the dream of his sleep, the occupation and enjoyment of 
many of his waking hours. But at the same time con- 
science is not utterly dead within him, and it occasionally 
disturbs him with terrible mutterings and forebodings. 
It tells him of his unworthy life, of his sin and guilt, and 
threatens him with a righteous condemnation and 
punishment. It whispers in his ear that if there be a 
God at all, he must be liable to His just displeasure, 
and he knows it in his heart. This dark thought haunts 
him like a dismal spectre by night and day, making him 
uneasy and miserable, sometimes even in the midst of his 
sin, more frequently and more deeply so after it is over. 
In order to attain to peace of mind, he must give up either 
his sin or his lingering belief in a holy and righteous 
God. He cannot think, however, to give up his sin; he 
is so enthralled by the love of it, so completely bound 
with its iron fetters. Like many men, he has got just 
enough of belief in God to make him miserable in a life 
of sin, but not enough to convert him effectually from 
it. In these circumstances, he naturally desires that 


‘CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. II 


there should be no God, no judgment, no hell, in order 
that he may be able to sin with impunity, without fear, 
and without disturbance. The wish by and by ends in 
being father to the thought; and what he ardently 
wishes, and finds it his supposed interest to believe, he 
soon persuades himself to believe. Under his fatal bias, 
he is ready to listen eagerly to every argument that may 
tell against the existence of God, and which thus falls in 
with his wishes; he shuts his mind to all considerations 
that prove His existence ; and he finally ends by per- 
suading himself that there is no God. His sin and 
selfishness lead him to Atheism. Just as men are some- 
times brought into Christianity by the sense of guilt, 
and the fear of judgment and of hell, so there are others 
who are by the same motives led into Atheism. The 
saying of Fichte is in very many cases extremely near 
the truth: ‘Our system of thought is frequently only 
the history of our heart.’ 

It is not an uncommon boast among some of the 
more decided opponents of positive Christianity, that 
all the foremost scientific men of the present day are 
unbelievers, Materialists, or at least Agnostics. But the 
adherents of our Churches have no reason whatever to 
be overwhelmed with dismay, and frightened out of their 
faith by any such boast. Though, unfortunately, many 
genuine scientific men belong to the unbelieving ranks, 
yet it is by no means the case that this is true of the 


I2 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


class asa whole. In proof of this, we cannot do better 
than quote from a writer, whose name will be accepted 
at once as that of a first-class scientific man and a 
thoroughly competent witness. Professor Tait of Edin- 
burgh, in reply to an article by Mr. Froude, in which the 
allegation just referred to was maintained, speaks as 
follows: ‘When we ask of any competent anthority who 
were the. “advanced,; the) “best,.-and «thes ablese 
scientific thinkers of the immediate past (in Britain), we 
cannot but receive for answer such names as Brewster, 
Faraday, Forbes, Graham, Rowan Hamilton, Herschel, 
and Talbot. This must be the case, unless we use the 
word science in a perverted sense. Which of these 
great men gave up the idea that nature evidences a 
designing mind? But perhaps Mr. Froude refers to the 
advanced thinkers, still happily alive among us. The 
names of the foremost among them are not far to seek. 
But, unfortunately for his assertion, it is quite certain 
that Andrews, Joule, Clerk-Maxwell, Balfour Stewart, 
Stokes, William Thomson, and such like, have, each and 
all of them, when the opportunity presented itself, spoken 
in a sense altogether different from that implied in Mr. 
Froude’s article. Surely there are no truly scientific 
thinkers in Britain further advanced than these!’! 
‘There is, says Dr. Maudsley, ‘hardly one, if indeed 
there be even one, eminent scientific inquirer who has 


1 International Review, Nov. 1878, pp. 725 f. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 13 


denied the existence of God.’! Professor Tyndall him- 
self records his declaration that ‘it is not in hours 
of clearness and vigour that this doctrine [Material 
Atheism] commends itself to his mind; that in pre- 
sence of stronger and healthier thought it ever dissolves 
and disappears, as offering no solution of the mystery 
in which we dwell’? This and similar utterancs on 
the part of earnest scientific men, who are commonly 
regarded as Materialists, may well lead us to the 
exercise of cautious charity, and remind us of the 
saying of Jacobi concerning himself: ‘With the heart 
a Christian, though with the intellect a heathen.’ 

But even admitting that the majority of first-class 
scientific men were Materialists, for us to doubt the 
truths of Christianity on that account would be quite 
unreasonable. We speak at present of those who are 
merely physicists, and have devoted no special study or 
examination to the historical and critical evidences of 
Christianity. The well-deserved eminence which such 
men have attained in the field of physical science does 
not make their testimony in the least degree more 
worthy of weight than that of other men, in the depart- 
ment of historical and critical evidence ; and this for the 
obvious reason that they are entirely out of their special 
field. Because a man is an eminent chemist and nothing 


1 Body and Mind, p. 335. 
2 Fragments of Science, vol. ii, p. 206. 


I4 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


more, that does not make his word of any authority in 
mathematics. Because a man is a splendid mathe- 
matician, that does not make him an authority in 
chemistry. So, on the same principle, because a man 
is an eminent physicist, that fact alone does not tend in 
itself to make him an authority in historical or Biblical 
criticism, any more than the fact that a man is eminent 
in the department of historical or Biblical criticism 
necessarily makes him an authority in physical science. 
In such cases, while the eminent specialists are trust- 
worthy authorities in their respective departments, they 
entirely cease to be so whenever they pass into another 
department which is altogether strange. In this new 
field their special eminence counts for little or nothing ; 
their testimony is simply that of an outsider, and not 
for a moment to be compared with that of even a very 
ordinary specialist in this department. In other words, 
just as the testimony of a very ordinary geologist is of 
far higher value in geology than that of the most dis- 
tinguished theologian who is nothing but a theologian ; 
so the testimony of a very ordinary theologian is of far 
higher authority in the theological field than that of the 
most eminent geologist who is nothing but a geologist. 
We must accordingly distinctly guard against the 
common but grievous fallacy of supposing that because 
eminent scientific specialists are high authorities in their 
respective fields, therefore they must also be of equally 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 15 


high authority in the totally different and foreign fields 
of theology and Biblical criticism.} 

But it may be said that this Scepticism, or the rejec- 
tion of the great facts and truths of Christianity, is not 
confined to mere physicists, who have never specially 
examined into questions of historical criticism. It is 
to be found strong and pronounced in men who have 
given a large amount of attention to such questions. 
We have it in such men as Baur and Strauss, Renan and 
the author of Supernatural Religion. And this is true. 
But then, in these and similar cases, the explanation is 
to a large extent plain and simple. These men were 
philosophers before they were critics. They had deter- 
mined the question of supernatural or no supernatural 
in the sphere of philosophy before they approached the 
field of Biblical criticism; and in each of the cases 
mentioned, they had determined the question in the 
negative. Baur declares it to be a ‘ purely philosophical 
question.’ He announces the standpoint of his criticism 
to be the ‘purely historical’ one, which, according to 
him, ‘ from the nature of the case,’ excludes the absolutely 
miraculous.” Strauss lays it down as a fundamental 
canon that ‘an event cannot be historical which is incon- 
sistent with the known and otherwise universal laws of 


1 See Appendix, Note IT. 
2 Kritische Untersuchungen, p. 225; cf. also pp. 121, 530; Azrchen 
geschichte, vol, i. pp. x. 1. 24.3 Die Tiibinger Schule, p. 14. 


16 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


phenomena,’* Renan states categorically that ‘the 
gospels are shown to be partly legendary, decause they 
are full of miracles and the supernatural.’ He says, 
‘According to my philosophy, there is no place for 
individual will in the government of the universe ;’ and 
again, ‘It is an absolute rule of criticism to grant no 
place in historical narratives to miraculous circum- 
stances.” The author of Supernatural Religion affirms 
that the miraculous is ‘antecedently incredible, and 
‘emphatically excluded by the whole constitution of the 
order of nature, and the like? In other words, their 
starting-point is, that there is and can be no supernatural. 
It is a pre-determined question, and hence, when they 
come to New Testament criticism, they must of necessity 
explain away, in the best manner they can, everything 
that savours of the miraculous. That is to say, instead 
of first looking at the evidence for the grand facts of 
Christianity, they practically foreclose the question by 
declaring that there is no supernatural, and therefore the 
gospel narratives must be mythical and fictitious, just 
because they contain a large element of the miraculous. 
The supernatural is the very subject under proof, and 
they reject the evidence for it, just because it contains 

1 Leben Jesu, vol. i. p. 103 (1837); compare New Life of Jesus, p. xii. 
(Authorized Translation), 

* Vie de Jésus, p. xv., 12th edition ; Recollections, p. 32 5; Les Apétres, 


p. xlvii. 
3 Supernatural Religion, vol. ii. pp. 480 f., 3rd edition. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, iy 


the element of the supernatural ; as if the supernatural 
could ever be proved by anything short of the super- 
natural! In view of this, it is not a thing to be very 
much wondered at that such men should be disbelievers 
in the grand truths of Christianity. The necessity of 
their philosophy required it, and therefore the pheno- 
menon need not occasion great perplexity. 

So far as physical science, strictly so called, is con- 
cerned, it cannot possibly either directly prove or 
disprove any of the great verities and doctrines of the 
Christian faith. This will clearly appear, when we 
consider what are the special instruments which it 
employs in the discovery of truth, and what is the 
special field of its investigation. If we ask what 
are the special instruments which it uses, the answer 
must be, the physical senses. Its method may be 
generally described as the method of investigation by 
the trained, accurate, intelligent, and patient use of 
the physical senses. Even when it uses. the most 
refined instrumental appliances as tests by which to 
discover the existence of the most delicate and subtle 
forces, it still depends on the thoughtful use of the 
bodily senses for its results. But if the instruments of 
discovery used by physical science are the senses, it 
necessarily follows that the field of investigation must 
correspond to its instruments. In other words, it must 


be the physical universe of matter and force, which 
B 


18 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


alone can be perceived by the physical senses. This is 
indeed implied, and even expressed, in the name, 
physical science. 

But if the instruments of physical science be the 
senses, and its special field the material universe, it 
follows that it can neither directly prove nor disprove 
the grand spiritual truths of Christianity. Its instru- 
ments, the physical senses, are, from their very nature, 
utterly incapable of perceiving these truths. They may 
perceive the things which are seen and temporal ; but 
they cannot perceive the things which are spiritual, 
unseen, and eternal. The senses singly, or taken all 
together, can no more directly perceive such things, 
than the eye can perceive a sound, or the ear perceive 
a colour; and that for the same reason, namely, the 
utter want of capacity. No scientific test, however 
delicate, can discover the presence of God, as it dis- 
covers a current of magnetic or electric force. No 
physical eye, however scientifically trained, can discover 
the facts of the atonement, or justification by faith, or 
the judgment, or the immortality of the blessed in 
heaven. ‘We observe, says Professor Tyndall, ‘what 
our senses, armed with the aids furnished by science, 
enable us to observe,—nothing more. When the un- 
believing astronomer, Laplace, declared that he had 
scanned the whole heaven with the telescope, but had 


found no God, this is exactly what we might have 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 19 


expected. If he had announced to the world, that he had 
discovered, in the depths of space, some ocean of subtle 
substance which he affirmed to be God, we might safely 
have affirmed in reply, that it was a delusion ; for God 
is a pure Spirit, ‘whom no man hath seen, nor can see.’ 

While mere science cannot discover the truths of 
religion, because its instruments are not of the kind 
necessary for their discovery, it cannot discover them 
for the further reason, which, indeed, is immediately 
implied in the above, that they are beyond its proper 
domain. This domain, as we have seen, is the physical 
universe of matter and force. But the fundamental 
truths of religion belong to the region of the unseen, the 
spiritual, the supernatural, which is a totally different 
sphere, lying quite beyond the horizon of physical 
science. Hence we see the force of Mr. Huxley’s state- 
ment, that ‘Science is neither Christian nor unchristian, 
but extra-Christian, that is, occupying a sphere, in a 
certain sense, outside of Christianity. 

From all this, it surely follows that science, strictly so 
called, can no more give direct testimony, either the one 
way or the other, in regard to the spiritual and super- 
natural verities of our religion, than the eye can give 
direct testimony in regard to sound, or taste, or the 
inhabitants of an unseen star in the infinite depths of 
space and the historical events which are being trans- 
acted there. ‘Eye hath not seen, nor: ear heard, neither 


20 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God 
hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.’ * 

There must, of course, be border territories where 
science and revelation meet, and where the materials 
and interests of both are mixed up together. In regard 
to such border-lands, as in the case of border-lands else- 
where, there may be room and necessity for no small 
disputation, before we can carry out the true Christian 
principle of rendering unto science the things that belong 
to science, and to revelation the things that belong to 
revelation. 

We have a notable instance of this border territory 
in the Bible narrative of the creation. We find men 
everywhere asking the question, some insultingly, others 
sorrowfully and anxiously, Does not science really come 
into direct and hopeless collision with revelation as to the 
account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis? 

Now we may safely reply that even here it does not 
and cannot. The first chapter of Genesis, like all the 
rest of the Bible, was not meant to be a revelation 
of science, but of religious truth. It was not written 
primarily to make known to us the order of physical 
creation, but the grand religious truth that the earth and 
its contents were created, and that God was the Creator. 
Its design is to sweep away all idolatry and mere 

1 See Appendix, Note III. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 21 


nature-worship, and to lay a solid foundation for the 
worship of God alone, by showing us that the universe, 
and all objects therein, are not independent existences, 
far less deities, but mere creatures of God’s hand, and 
therefore not proper objects of worship. Its object very 
specially is to show that it is one and the same God 
who is the Creator of man and all things, the God of 
providence and history, and the God of redemption, and 
that therefore through all there is but the one only, the 
living and the true God. It is most certainly this all- 
important and distinctly religious purpose that is the 
supreme object of the first chapter of Genesis, and not 
the revelation of the scientific facts concerning the order 
of creation. 

We may safely go farther, and say that the first 
chapter of Genesis, by laying it down as a fundamental 
truth that the universe is the creation of God, gives 
a religious foundation to physical science. It declares 
distinctly that nature is the revelation and work of God 
as really and truly, so far as it goes, as the Bible itself 
can possibly be. 


‘’Tis elder Scripture writ by God’s own hand ; 
Scripture authentic, uncorrupt by man.’ + 


Accordingly it must clearly be our duty to study 
this first and simpler revelation of God as well as 
the second and higher. Over against ‘Search the 


1 Young’s Might Thoughts, Night Ninth, ll. 646 f. 


22 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Scriptures,’ the first chapter of Genesis practically writes 
and inculcates ‘Study nature, for it is God’s revelation.’ 
But this study of nature, of matter and force and 
their laws, of life and its organisms, is just physical 
science. Hence this chapter is really the religious 
charter of science, which gives it an authoritative 
place in the religious sphere alongside of the study 
of the Bible, and invests it with a religious sanction 
and significance. The religious standing thus given to 
science, it is our sacred duty fully to recognise, it is 
our sin thoughtlessly to ignore or despise. As surely 
as any man believes the truth taught in the first 
chapter of Genesis, that all nature is the creation ot 
God, so surely is he under the most religious obliga- 
tion to believe every truth of nature fully ascertained 
by science. To refuse this is a sin against this chapter, 
a sin against the God of creation, an act of deep 
religious unbelief. ? 

Leaving aside, for the moment the question whether 
the first chapter of Genesis is an exact record of physical 
facts or only a pictorial exhibition of a great religious 
truth, in any case, it falls to science to give us, if it can, 
certain information in regard to the order and details of 
creation, and thus contribute decisive aid to the final 
solution of the question. When science has made 
known to us the truth of the matter, it will be our 


1 Compare Geikie, Hours with the Bible; Creation to Patriarchs, p. 39. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 23 


religious duty to accept its teaching, for this field lies 
within its proper domain. The essential Bible truth of 
the chapter, that God is the Creator of all things, can 
never be touched by science, for it is totally beyond its 
range; but it is within its range to ascertain the order 
and details of creation, and when it has reached sure 
results in regard thereto, we are bound absolutely to 
accept them as the very truth of God. What we have 
to be certain about is, that the results shall be really 
scientific truth, and not a mere hypothesis. With this 
view distinctly before us, it is obviously our wise and 
proper course as Christians to possess our souls in 
patience, and quietly wait until science has arrived at 
absolute certainty. ‘He that believeth shall not make 
haste’ If science should ever be able to prove that the 
actual order of creation was different from that given in 
Genesis, there will be no occasion for dismay. It will 
only be in harmony with, the unquestionable fact, that 
the Bible is primarily a revelation of special religious 
truth, and not of physical science." 

At the same time, we by no means hold that science 
has as yet demonstrated that the order in the first 
chapter of Genesis must be considered as altogether 
belonging to the realistic, pictorial, or parabolic form 
or clothing of the truth to be taught. It seems very 
clear that the account in Genesis is unique among the 


1 See Appendix, Note IV. 


24 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


cosmogonies. Itis free from the fables and monstrosities 
to be found in the cosmogonies of Greece and India, and 
even Babylonia. And how is this to be explained? 
It is clear that the date of the creation, as indicated 
here, is of indefinite antiquity, and that the order is one 
of progression from the lowest to the highest types of 
organisms, as is the case in nature. And how are we to 
account for this? There appears to be from the very 
‘beginning’ a general agreement in the order; for, 
though the geologic ages overlap each other, so that 
they are not bounded by any sharp lines, yet they seem 
to agree essentially with the order of Genesis. How, 
again, does this happen to be the case? Genesis repre- 
sents man as the final and crowning step of creation, 
which also seems to be a truth of science; and, lastly, it 
would appear both from Genesis and science that, since 
the advent of man, God has had an age of Sabbath rest 
from creating new species. And how, we may ask, does 
Genesis turn out to be correct in these points also? 
Surely we may well say that it is more than wonderful 
that an author, writing in the midst of wild and fabulous 
cosmogonies and scientific night, should have hit by 
mere chance on so many elements of truth and sober- 
ness in regard to such a difficult question. Surely the 
whole suggests a higher hand than that of Moses.! 

In close connection with this question as to creation, 


1 Compare Newman Smyth, Old Faiths in New Light, chap. iv. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 25 


and, indeed, forming a most important element in it, 
is that of evolution, or the so-called development 
hypothesis. This is the explanation of life and living 
organisms chiefly relied on by materialistic Atheists in 
our time, for the banishment of an intelligent Creator 
from the universe. Accordingly, because of the com- 
pany which the hypothesis is so often found to keep, 
and with which it is such a favourite, many have come 
to look upon it with intense suspicion, and ask the 
question, Is it not utterly and essentially atheistic ? 
Does it not banish the Creator for ever from the 
universe? But this hypothesis does not necessarily 
do any such thing. Even though it were scientifically 
proved that evolution from lower forms to higher was 
the method of creation, it would not change the relation 
of God to creation in any substantial degree. So very 
obviously is this the case, that the most distinguished 
advocates of evolution have clearly seen and admitted 
its consistency with the doctrine of a personal God. 
This is true of Wallace, and Darwin himself, and the 
author of the Vestiges of the Natural History of 
Creation. J. S. Mill very explicitly states that ‘the 
theory, if admitted, would be in no way whatever 
inconsistent with creation, 1 Professor Calderwood, 
from the distinctly Christian standpoint, is no less 
emphatic. He says: ‘It is obvious that, even if this 


1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 174. , 


26 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


theory were accepted in the form in which it is at 
present propounded, not only would the rational basis 
for belief in the divine existence and government not 
be affected by it, but the demand on a Sovereign 
Intelligence would be intensified” * It would be easy 
to multiply authorities ; but it is unnecessary, for it can 
hardly be questioned that the evolution theory leaves 
the relation of God to creation essentially where it was 
before.” 

For what is evolution or the development hypothesis, 
viewed from the theistic or Christian point of view? It 
is not a real and independent cause or power in itself, 
and therefore it can originate nothing, and can account 
for the existence of nothing. It is only a mode of 
operation, the method supposed to be employed by 
the true Cause or Creator in carrying out His work of 
creation.2 It means that God, instead of creating new 
forms all at once out of inanimate matter, made use of 
lower forms, working in and on them so as gradually 
to push them up into higher forms. His power, His 
intelligence, His will wrought in the lower forms, ever 
giving them higher potency, pressing them upward, and 
directing their upward course, and moulding from within 
and without new organisms to suit the new stage. 

Now it is surely plain that there must be very much 


1 Science and Religion, p. 21. ? See Appendix, Note V. 
3 See this well thought out in Fairbairn’s Czty of God, pp. 58 ff. 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 27 


the same intelligence, power, and will expended on the 
part of God in the case supposed, as in that of im- 
mediate creation. In both cases there is needed just as 
much as will produce the result, and nothing more. 
The only essential difference is, that in the one case 
the divine operation is extended over a vast period of 
time, whereas in the other it is concentrated. But it 
matters not how long a man takes to climb a hill,—an 
hour, a day, or a year. It is a certain law of physics 
that he must expend exactly as much force in the one 
case as in the other, neither more nor less. It matters 
not whether the builder finish the house in a month or 
in ten years. He has to expend very much the same 
intelligence, power, and work on it in the one case as in 
the other. The fact that he raises it slowly stone by 
stone in no way radically changes the problem. By 
spreading the intelligence and power over the years, we 
do not get rid of them. We only make their move- 
ments slower, and therefore less observable. But, in 
either case, very much the same amount must be ex- 
pended, the amount necessary to produce the result. 
And so it is with God in nature according to the Chris- 
tian theory of evolution. The fact that He works slowly 
does not do away with His work. It is as necessary in 
the slow process as in the immediate one ; and to think 
that because the process proceeds so slowly, therefore 
it proceeds without God, may be as shallow a fallacy as 


28 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


to suppose that, because the house is built slowly, there- 
fore it is built without a builder, and even builds itself. 
It is quite certain that there is no moral necessity as 
yet laid on us to accept evolution pure and simple as a 
scientific truth, even the highest scientific men them- 
selves being judges. In the whole history of man we 
have no unquestionable case of spontaneous generation 
of life, or the origin of a distinctly new species. We 
have no experimental proof of either the one or the 
other, in spite of human ingenuity and observation. 
The experiments of Pasteur and Tyndall may, for the 
present, be confidently regarded as having annihilated 
those of Bastian, which were fondly supposed to have 
demonstrated spontaneous generation. Moreover, when 
we go back to the geologic ages, we find that the vast gulf 
between the brain-mass of man and that of the highest 
ape was practically the same as at the present day. 
The average brain of man, as he now exists, is more 
than three times that of the highest ape ; and it was the 
same in the earliest period of which we have any know- 
ledge. There is, therefore, no trustworthy proof of 
mere development gradually bridging over the gulf. 
Once more, our mathematical physicists seem to have 
demonstrated that the world has not existed in the 
present state nearly long enough to allow time for the 
slow processes of an imperceptible evolution.’ But in 


1 See Appendix, Note VI, 


: CHRISTIANITY. AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 29 


any case we ought not to give way to alarm, and should 
allow science to work out the problem calmly for itself. 
If evolution should ever be demonstrated to be the 
method adopted by God in creation, Christians will 
only have reason to thank science for the discovery of 
the truth ; and we may rest assured that science, in the 
very process of proving evolution, will also educe proofs, 
that this is after all the method which affords the highest 
manifestation of creative wisdom. 

Christians, as we have already seen, are bound by 
their allegiance to Him who is the Truth, to seek the 
truth, and, when they have found it, to be loyal to it 
whatever may betide. Their inmost spirit should ever 
be that expressed in the passionate cry of Augustine, 
‘O Truth, Truth! thou knowest how the inward marrow 
of my soul longeth after thee. We ought therefore to 
be prepared most thankfully to accept the truth by 
whatsoever channel it may come. Accordingly, instead 
of hating and reviling science, we should remember that 
we have much reason, as Christians, to thank it in the 
past for correcting erroneous views which had mingled 
with current exegesis and theology, and we should be 
modest enough to expect that the same thing may 
possibly happen again in the future. There was a time 
when men devoutly believed that the sun rose in the 
east, moved through the heavens, and set in the west, 
and even thought this view demonstrated by the Bible. 


30 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


But science has corrected this mistake, by showing that 
the earth moves round its own axis; and surely as 
Christians it becomes us to thank science for revealing 
to us the actual truth in the case. There was a time 
when the earth, and not the sun, was regarded as the 
fixed centre of the solar system; but science has demon- 
strated the truth of the Copernican view, and swept out 
of existence for ever the Ptolemaic system with ‘centric 
and eccentric scribbled o’er, cycle and epicycle.” There 
was a time when the earth was regarded as only six 
thousand years old or so; but science has proved that 
millions of years have elapsed since the creation. There 
was a time when it was held that the earth had gone 
through its main creative stages in the space of six 
days of twenty-four hours each ; but science has shown 
that each stage occupied myriads of years. Science has 
corrected these and similar mistakes which mingled with 
traditional exegesis and theology. They lay within the 
proper domain of science, and it has now given a final 
and trustworthy deliverance in regard to them. And 
clearly it is our duty, as Christians, to be grateful 
for the truth thus discovered, to accept it cordially, 
and frankly to acknowledge our high obligations to 
science for correcting the errors and revealing the real 
facts. 

When we look at the past, we may well learn another 
very important lesson which may be of use in the 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 31 


future. That is, that Christianity has never had any 
great difficulty in appropriating to itself and its service 
the corrections of science, and adjusting its relations to 
new and real discoveries ; and this for the simple reason 
that they were the truth. Many Christians were greatly 
terrified at the overthrow of the old Ptolemaic system 
of astronomy, which made the earth the centre of the 
universe. But, not to dwell on the fact that Copernicus, 
who thought out the true scientific view, was himself an 
ecclesiastic and a professed believer, we may safely say 
that no Christian of sense has any difficulty nowadays 
in accepting the Copernican system as true. There was 
no small dismay, and not a little of the rash cry of 
heresy, when geologists began to maintain the antiquity 
of the earth, with most of its various species of plants 
and animals. But now, no Christian of a healthful 
mind has any great difficulty in accepting the fact of 
the earth’s antiquity, and thanking science for the truth. 
And so will it be with the real discoveries of science in 
the future where they turn out to collide with the views 
of traditional theology. Whatever flutter they may 
cause at first, Christianity will soon be able to adjust 
itself to them, and Christians will have reason to be 
thankful to science for revealing the very truth, and 
giving us a fuller and clearer manifestation of the 
creative wisdom of God. 

In view of all that has been said, it will appear clear 


32 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


to the thoughtful mind that there is no need for the 
feverish, blind, and unreasonable dread which possesses 
and excites not a few Christians in regard to physical 
science. She is not, and from the nature of the case 
cannot be, the foe of true religion, any more than geology 
can be the foe of mathematics, or astronomy the foe of 
mental philosophy or political economy ; and this just 
from the fact that her kingdom lies in a totally different 
sphere. Her special kingdom, as we have seen, is the 
physical universe, and there she reigns legitimately 
supreme. There she is at home and speaks with 
authority, and we must accept her clearly and fully 
ascertained results as the truth. We are bound to do 
so, as Christians, by our loyalty to truth and the God 
of truth. But when science forsakes her own special 
domain, and passes into ‘the regions beyond, then she 
is out of her own kingdom, and ceases to speak with 
authority. When she enters the metaphysical sphere, 
the spiritual or supernatural sphere, she ceases to be 
physical science, and becomes metaphysical or theo- 
logical speculation under the false name of physical 
science. Working in her own field, she may amass 
many physical facts and principles which imply and 
point to great spiritual truths, and which may help the 
cautious and penetrating theological thinker to correct 
imperfect views of the truth received by tradition ; but 
she cannot of herself directly reach such truths so as 


CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 33 


either to prove or disprove them. She cannot be an 
authoritative witness in regard to them either one way 
or another, any more than a man who is blind can bea 
witness in regard to the colour of a person’s dress who 
has just passed him at a distance. It is therefore utterly 
erroneous to suppose that true science can ever injure 
true religion, and it is unreasonable to entertain a blind 
fear or hatred against her because of such a supposition. 
To do so does not imply faith in Christianity, but a want 
of faith in it; a want of faith in truth and the God of 
truth. In short, the blind dread of science is sheer 
distrust of God, and a very real form of unbelief. 


18h 
OF INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 


WHILE the way of salvation is so very plain that even a 
child can apprehend it, it is not to be denied that there 
are many intellectual difficulties in connection with 
Christianity. It ought even to be frankly admitted that 
these difficulties are great both in number and in magni- 
tude. But, unfortunately, there is a class of people who, 
from some mental idiosyncrasy, or peculiarity of train- 
ing, keep looking at these mysteries only, or at least 
supremely, peering into the deep and unfathomable well, 
until they become bewildered by the darkness. They 
are drawn as by a morbid spell to fix their troubled 
mind upon the, difficulties alone, until perhaps they end 
by regarding Christianity as an absurd, irrational, and 
incredible system, not even ‘a cunningly devised fable,’ 
and are fain to seek refuge from their perplexity in 
Scepticism or sheer Atheism. Just as the moth keeps 
fluttering around the flame until it is consumed by it, so 
their minds keep hovering around these difficulties until 
they prove their undoing. The object of the present 
study is to deal with these difficulties in a practical way, 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION, 35 


and show what is the proper light in which to regard 
them, and what is the wise and healthful mode of 
treating them. 

To many honest thinkers it is at first sight a matter 
of the greatest wonder that there should be any difficul- 
ties at all in a religion like Christianity, which professes 
to be a revelatzon from God to man; and they are ready 
to say, How much easier it would be to bea Christian, 
if only all mysterious doctrines were swept out of 
Christianity ! 

But instead of its being a reason for wonder that there 
are difficult doctrines in the Christian system, such 
doctrines are just what we might naturally expect. If 
any man were to declare that he had discovered or 
invented a religion which kept clear of all such doctrines, 
we might safely say that this very fact would show it to 
be a false and shallow religion ; for a religion that has 
to do with such mysteries as sin, and God, and atone- 
ment, must of necessity contain difficult doctrines. If 
any religion avoids such doctrines, it can only do so by 
avoiding to grapple with those grand and awful problems 
which lie at the root of all genuine religion, and thus 
entirely failing to accomplish its end. These difficulties, 
accordingly, instead of being an occasion for wonder, 
are just what we might naturally expect, and instead of 
being an argument against Christianity, rather turn out, 
so far, to be an argument in its favour, 


36 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


We may sometimes meet with people who are ready 
to declare that they are not under obligation to believe, 
and will not believe, what they cannot fully comprehend. 
But this is a principle which the slightest reflection will 
show to be utterly unsound and untenable. We must 
believe what we apprehend or see to be true, whether 
we can comprehend it or not; for our belief depends on 
sufficient evidence, and not on perfect comprehension 
of the object or event. It is a question, we repeat, of 
sufficient evidence, and not of complete logical analysis 
or comprehension. Let us contemplate, for example, 
the fact of our own personal existence. We must 
believe it on the evidence of our consciousness, though 
we cannot comprehend in the least the mystery of our 
existence. We know the /act that we do exist, but the 
ow we cannot understand. Indeed, we need only to 
reflect fora moment to be convinced of the truth that 
creation is teeming with* mysteries which we must 
accept on the evidence of our senses, but which we 
cannot. in the least comprehend. . In’ the eloquent 
language of J. S. Mill, ‘Human existence is girt round 
with mystery ; the narrow region of our experience is a 
small island in the midst of a boundless sea, which at 
once awes our feelings and stimulates our imagination 
by its vastness and obscurity. To add to the mystery, 
the domain of our earthly existence is not only an 
island in infinite space, but also in infinite time. The 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 37 


past and the future are alike shrouded from us; we 
neither know the origin of anything which is, nor 
its final destination! In short, all nature is full of 
mysteries, from the common dust beneath our feet 
up to the rolling world, and the still more mysterious 
soul of man. And surely if Nature, the first and lower 
revelation of God, is full of mysteries, the principle of 
continuity would lead us to expect that Christianity, the 
second and more advanced revelation, should contain 
similar and even greater and more numerous mysteries, 
as leading us into deeper depths. In any case, to quote 
the words of Leibnitz, ‘the man who in divine things 
will believe nothing except what he can fully measure 
with his understanding, must narrow down the idea of 
God.’ 

It is natural, first of all, to inquire whence these diffi- 
culties arise. And we answer, that they partly arise 
from the objects contemplated in religion. One of these 
objects is God. He is indeed the prime object presented 
to us in religion, and in Him it lives and moves and has 
its being. But God is a being of such exalted nature, 
that we ought to be prepared to meet with mystery in 
any religion that professes to give us a revelation of 
Him. Mystery is indeed inseparably connected with 
the idea of God, and a God in whom there is no element 
of mystery, but who is perfectly comprehensible to us, 


1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 102. 


38 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


would be no God at all, but a being inferior to ourselves. 
And accordingly the Bible invariably represents God as 
a being involved in mystery, and makes no pretensions 
to clear it away. We find the patriarchs at the dawn of 
revelation speaking of Him asa mystery: ‘Canst thou 
by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the 
Almighty unto perfection?’ Ages pass away, and the 
light of revelation becomes fuller ; but still the Psalmist 
has to say, ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him.’ 
And even when we come to the New Testament age, 
and the days of Him who is ‘the image of the invisible 
God, the mystery is not cleared up; for is not Christ 
Himself declared to be the great ‘mystery of godliness’? 
Indeed, the main difference in this respect between the 
Old Testament and the New is, that in the former God 
is generally represented as a mystery because of the 
darkness, and in the latter because of the excessive light 
of glory in which He dwells. 

There are many elements in the character of God 
which necessarily make Him mysterious to us. We 
can select only one or two as instances. And evidently 
one source of the mystery is the fact, that He is a pure 
and formless Spirit. ‘God is a Spirit. When we refer 
to this as a source of mystery, we do not mean to say 
that spirit is to us really more mysterious, or less clearly 
and fully comprehended, than matter. On the contrary, 
there is the best reason to hold that this is not the case; 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 39 


and if any one doubts it, he can settle the matter very 
easily for himself. He has but to take a quiet half-hour, 
and think out all the properties of matter which he 
knows, and put them down in one column, and then all 
the properties of spirit, such as consciousness, thought, 
memory, conscience, feeling, imagination, will, and the 
like, and put them down in another column by them- 
selves, and he will find, perhaps to his astonishment, 
that the second column is just as extensive and intelli- 
gible as the first. In other words, we have, to say the 
least, just as clear and as extensive knowledge concern- 
ing spirit as we have concerning matter, Even Mr. 
Huxley, with his usual honesty, admits it to be an 
indisputable truth that our knowledge of the soul is 
more intimate and certain than our knowledge of the 
body,! and a@ fortiori of matter in general. Still there 
can be little doubt that, as a rule, men are so much 
accustomed to use their physical senses, and to think by 
means of forms or symbols, that it is a difficult thing for 
them to think clearly of a pure and formless Spirit like 
God. 

Another element in the nature of God which involves 
Him in mystery is His infinity. We are apt to overlook 
the meaning of infinity, and because the word is familiar 
to eye and ear, and slips easily over our tongue, to 
suppose that we fully understand it. But it really means 


1 Essays selected from Lay Sermons, etc., p. 139. 


40 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


without all limits, and therefore beyond the possibility 
of our comprehension. Perhaps by an effort of recol- 
lection, we may be able to recall the time when the idea 
of the infinite first dawned upon the soul. We stood on 
a shoreless sea, or looked up into the deep blue sky, and 
as we endeavoured in thought to fathom the dim space 
around or above, the idea of the infinite was borne in 
upon our mind. We can, perhaps, remember the strange 
thrill and amazement of the soul at the birth of the new 
thought, and how we felt overwhelmed with the great 
and awful weight of mystery. Every one who has had 
such a vivid perception of the infinite will be prepared 
to expect that an infinite God must of necessity be a 
mystery. How much more must this be the case when 
we remember that in Him there is not only infinity, but 
infinity, as it were, piled upon infinity—infinite dura- 
tion, infinite power, infinite knowledge, omnipresence in 
infinite space, infinite holiness, infinite love, and many 
more infinites besides; for is He not the absolutely 
infinite One? Indeed, we soon become bewildered in 
our attempt to realize Him, and begin to understand the 
saying of the old Greek poet, who declared that the 
longer he thought about God, the greater the mystery 
appeared. 

Another object contemplated in religion is man. But 
we may be ready to say, Surely we must be at home here 
at least, and all this department of the field must be free 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 4I 


from difficulty. Yet how far is this from being the case 
—for ‘what a mystery is man to man!’ Although 
psychologists have been engaged in the study of the 
human soul for ages, the mystery is very imperfectly 
cleared up. It is just like what the maps of Africa are, 
which were constructed thirty or forty years ago. There 
is a little fringe around the shore, which is more or less 
accurately mapped out, while the vast interior is marked 
‘unexplored territory. And so is it even yet with the 
human soul. There is much of unexplored territory 
within it, great deeps which have been little broken up. 
‘We are fearfully and wonderfully made’ Our coming 
into life is a mystery, our departure out of it a mystery, 
and all the course between is a perfect web of mystery, 
In the language of Goethe, the great German poet and 
thinker, ‘Man is a mysterious being; [of himself] he 
knows not whence he comes, nor whither he goes ; he 
knows little of the world, and least of all of himself’ 
And surely when we remember that Christianity has to 
do with man, who is a mystery, and with God, who is 
the mystery of mysteries, we should not be surprised to 
find that it contains intellectual difficulties. Rather we 
should expect to discover in it ‘things hard to be under- 
stood,’ and which we must be content, in the present life, 
to know only in part. . 
But these intellectual difficulties arise not merely from 
the nature of the objects contemplated, but also from the 


42 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


finiteness of the human mind which contemplates them. 
There is no mystery about God to Himself, just because 
‘His understanding is infinite And much more must 
He fully comprehend us, who are the finite work of His 
own hands. But it is far otherwise with man. His 
mind is very limited, and the question at once arises, 
How can such a finite mind ever comprehend an infinite 
Being in all His infinity? And the answer must be 
that the thing is impossible. Some positive and impor- 
tant knowledge concerning the infinite God such a mind 
may possess, but to comprehend Him fully is impossible. 
Finite space cannot contain infinite space; the part 
cannot contain the whole: man cannot take up the 
ocean in the hollow of his hand, or clasp the ponderous 
globe in his arms; and so his finite mind cannot com- 
prehend the infinite Jehovah, or the little plummet of his 
reason sound the unfathomable ocean of Deity. And 
hence we are forced to the conclusion, that it is impos- 
sible in the very nature of things for God to give 
a revelation of Himself to man which shall be clear 
of all difficulty. Before this can be the case, man must 
become God. 

And how ought we to conduct ourselves in view of 
these difficulties? We ought plainly, for one thing, 
to recognise the limits of human thought. The mind 
may be brought to rest in regard to a truth in two ways. 
It rests when it fully comprehends it; but it will also 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 43 


sink into rest when it clearly sees that the difficulty is 
beyond the limits of human thought, and therefore 
utterly insoluble. It is indeed very much the same 
with the investigator of truth as it is with the mountain- 
climber. When the climber comes to the mountain 
which is the object of his attack, if he finds it accessible 
at all, he will not rest satisfied until he has mastered 
it, stands upon its summit, and enjoys the noble 
prospect. But when he comes to it and finds it 
obviously unscalable, then he ceases to waste his 
strength upon it, sits down satisfied in its awful shadow, 
and admires in wondering reverence its sublime peaks 
and precipices. And so with the mind and any truth 
or problem which is the object of its contemplation. If 
the truth seems soluble, it will not rest content until it 
has mastered it, taken its stand upon its summit, and 
surveyed the new landscapes beyond. But it will also 
rest content and cease to weary itself in vain, when it 
has discovered that the truth is absolutely insoluble, 
and beyond the limits of human thought. It will then 
be ready to sit down in its sublime shadow, and in its 
mysterious presence give way to feelings of reverence 
and adoration. 

It does not lie within our scope at present to prove 
the authority or trustworthiness of the New Testament : 
but it does lie within it to guard against an error, into 
which not a few are ready to fall in reference to the 


44 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


New Testament. Because they find many dirficulties 
there, and things which are flatly contrary to their 
prejudices and likings, they proceed at once to throw 
it aside as a forgery or fiction. But this is a most 
unreasonable procedure, such as no practical man would 
follow in secular things. Perhaps we cannot see this 
more clearly than by an illustration. It not unfre- 
quently happens, when a wealthy man’s testament is 
opened and read after his death, that some of his 
relatives are displeased and disappointed. They have 
been left out altogether, or they have got very small 
sums ; while others whom they dislike or think without 
any claims at all, have got far too much. But because 
they are disappointed with the will, and its contents do 
not exactly fall in with their views, this is no reason why 
it should at once be set aside. If the will is properly 
drawn out, legally attested, and unquestionably genuine, 
this settles the matter. The parties concerned must be 
content with its’ terms, however much they may be 
disappointed and displeased with them. And so, after 
finding out on its own appropriate evidence the authen- 
ticity and trustworthiness of the New Testament, we 
are not at liberty to reject it because of its difficult and 
disagreeable doctrines. To do so may be rationalism, 
but it is not reasonableness. 

It may be well to utter a word of warning here 
against supposing that because certain doctrines are 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 45 


mysterious they are necessarily uncertain. There are 
some who incline to believe that the mysterious is 
always more or less doubtful, that mysterious and 
doubtful are very much the same thing. But this is 
a great mistake, for a matter is not necessarily more 
doubtful in the least because it is mysterious. If 
one of our travellers were to tell the natives of Central 
Africa, that in Britain long trains, many scores of tons 
in weight, might be seen rushing through the country 
at the rate of forty miles an hour, and no living creature 
attached to draw them ; or if he were to tell them that 
aman can sit in London and converse with a friend in 
New York, the words passing instantaneously along the 
bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,—they would certainly 
regard these statements as mysterious, and perhaps as 
absolute untruths: but we know that our railway system 
and the Atlantic telegraph are undeniable facts. We 
see, then, that a doctrine is not necessarily uncertain 
because it is mysterious. A mystery may be quite as 
certain as the very simplest fact. As we have already 
seen, certainty is alla matter of sufficient evidence, and 
not of mere intellectual comprehension. 

What then we have to do with these difficult doc- 
trines is to believe them on their own appropriate and 
sufficient evidence, and leave the solution of the mystery 
in the hands of God. If we accept the Bible as God’s 
authoritative word, and find a difficult doctrine clearly 


46 STUDIES IN THE .CHRISTIAN “EVIDENCES. 


contained in it, and educed from it all by reasonable 
interpreters, we must accept it as true; and it is quite 
unscientific and irrational to explain it away, or begin 
to pare it down to the measure of our mind and wish. 
What God requires us in the first place to do, is to find 
out, receive, and be loyal to the truth, and not to solve 
mysteries. To take an illustration: we cannot com- 
prehend the mystery of the Trinity, but we find it 
clearly taught in the New Testament, and therefore we 
are bound to accept it whether we can comprehend it 
or not. We cannot reconcile fully the two opposite 
polar doctrines of God’s decrees and man’s freedom. 
But we find the former taught in the Bible and in 
history, and the latter in the Bible and our conscious- 
ness, and therefore, on their respective evidences, we are 
bound to accept them both. We may not be able 
to follow out the intricate interaction of the two truths; 
but we are not called on to do so, for we are saved by 
believing the truth, and not by solving mysteries. Nay, 
we are expressly told that a man may ‘understand all 
mysteries and all knowledge,’ and yet be nothing. In 
short, we must hold fast the truth attained, and leave 
the mysteries in the hands of God, to be cleared up in 
His own good time and way. This is at once the 
genuine spirit of true science and true philosophy, as 
well as of true theology and common sense. 

In view of the whole state of the case, we may well 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 47 


utter a word of respectful caution to many of our 
younger Church adherents against being moved by 
mere intellectual difficulties at once to renounce 
Christianity. It is well in such cases that thoughtful 
people should remember that here, if anywhere, they 
may have reason to bear the difficulties they have, 
rather than ‘fly to others that they know not of, If 
they think that the difficulties of Christianity are 
greater than those of the competing systems, it is 
merely because they are not yet acquainted with the 
latter. They know the difficulties of Christianity 
because they have often heard them insinuated, or 
dinned into their ears by its loud opponents; but if 
they were only half as well acquainted with the diffi- 
culties of the anti-Christian systems, they would find 
that they are still greater and still more numerous. 
Atheistic Materialism, Pantheism, Positivism, Secu- 
larism, Scepticism, Agnosticism, and the like, all 
present intellectual difficulties greater than those of 
Christianity, and moral difficulties vastly greater. 
They leave untouched all the grand and _ pressing 
enigmas of life, and make all its sad shadows, its 
sorrows and sufferings, its bereavements and _ trials 
doubly dark. They have not a single ray of hope 
and light to cast on the darkness of death, but rather 
deepen the blackness into ‘a horror of great darkness.’ 
Rousseau, in a striking passage, pictures out the 


48 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


different species of Atheists as met in conclave to explain 
the secret of the universe, and Clarke, at the close of 
their different proposals, enunciating the idea of God. 
Such an idea, he says, only needed to have been pro- 
pounded last of all to command universal acceptance 
and admiration as the grand solution. Then he adds, 
in words which we may freely translate and apply to 
Christianity, ‘The elements in Christianity which are 
incomprehensible to the human mind are less in num- 
ber than the positive absurdities of other systems: The 
insoluble objections are common to them all, because 
the mind of man is too limited to solve them. Accord- 
ingly, they prove nothing against Christianity more 
than against other systems. Ought not, then, that 
system which alone explains everything to be preferred 
when it has no more of difficulty in it than the others, 
especially when it vastly excels them all in the direct 
proofs of its truth ?’? 

The difficult doctrines of our religion are not without 
their advantages, and it may be well to mention two or 
three of them. 

It is obvious, for example, that they have a great 
educative or training power. As every one knows, there 
are two modes of education possible and practised. 
The one is commonly called cramming, according to 
which the scholar has all his difficulties solved for him, 


1 Emile, Livre IV. p. 316 (Firmin-Didot). 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION. 49 


and only passively receives the results or facts. The 
man who is educated on this system may have a large 
store of knowledge; but his intellect will be un- 
developed, and he will be feeble in practical sagacity 
and independence of thought and action. The other 
mode is that of training, in which the teacher wisely 
brings the scholar into contact with difficulties, and 
encourages him to solve them for himself. The result 
is, that in wrestling with these difficulties the mind 
wrestles itself into full and manly vigour, the intellect 
is well developed, and practical sagacity and_ inde- 
pendent thought and action become natural to the 
man. Now, in like manner, these difficult doctrines 
are most useful as a means of high and manly training 
in the religious sphere. We can conceive of God 
having revealed to us only a few plain and simple 
facts as the whole doctrinal system of our religion ; and 
such a system might have been the means of saving us ; 
but it could not have reared a race of vigorous and 
intellectual Christians. This species of Christians can 
be fully reared only in the midst of brave and manly 
wrestling with difficulties, which above most things 
tends to make us strong. It is the great doctrines 
alone that fill and expand the mind, that bring us up 
to perfect manhood, ‘to the measure of the stature of 
the fulness of Christ,’ | 


_ But the difficult elements in Christianity are also 
D 


50 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


useful as a means of training men in some of the most 
important Christian virtues. They tend, for one thing, 
to train the mind in faith. They present a field in 
which we must learn to trust God even when we cannot 
fully comprehend Him, in which we must be content to 
walk by faith, and not by sight. They also afford a 
very efficient means of training the soul in humility and 
modesty. They remind us that we are but of yesterday, 
and know nothing; that we are very finite creatures, 
utterly unable to fathom the depths and scale the 
heights of God and His universe. They furthermore 
train the soul in the exercise of habitual reverence. 
This highest and sublimest of all human emotions can 
live and grow only under the shadow of the mysterious, 
the infinite, and the unscalable. The presence of ‘the 
little hills’ may awaken pleasure, but it is the presence 
of the sublimest Alps, the Matterhorns, the Monts 
Blancs, the Schreckhorns, whose snowy summits reach 
far up into the lonely blue, which alone can awaken 
reverence. And, on the same principle, it is not the 
plain and simple truths of our religion, but rather its 
infinite heights and depths of mystery, which awaken 
and nourish the sublimest reverence and awe. 

But obviously also these difficult doctrines tend to 
awaken and keep up intellectual interest, and make 
provision for intellectual enjoyment for ever. The mind 
has an instinctive desire for new knowledge. When it 


INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES IN RELIGION, 51 


has exhausted any subject, then to be happy, after a due 
rest, it must pass on to something new. If it were 
already possessed of all knowledge, obviously in looking 
forward to the future, the springs of interest and of hope 
would to a large extent be dried up, and it would have 
nothing in prospect but a comparatively monotonous 
and uninteresting eternity. But in these mysteries we 
see that this cannot be the case, for it has an inexhaus- 
tible field before it for its investigation. It will be 
drawn on from one discovery to another, advancing 
from the summit of one grand mystery, now solved, to 
another, like a giant stepping from mountain peak to 
mountain peak, nearer and nearer to the infinite Jehovah, 
the intensity of interest ever deepening with the deepen- 
ing eternity, 


GUE 


OF REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, AND THE 
DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED THEREWITH. 


THERE can be little doubt that man is by nature formed 
to be a religious being. The religious capacity or 
instinct is a primary and essential part of his original 
constitution, and it is the crowning element which em- 
phatically distinguishes him from the lower animals. 
Our own consciousness clearly testifies to the fact that 
we possess religious capacities and emotions; nor can 
this be denied even by those who have ceased to profess 
adherence to any special form of religion. But the fact 
is still further proved by the universality of religion 
throughout the human race. Every tribe yet discovered, 
whose manners and customs have been carefully investi- 
gated, possesses religion in some form or other; and 
if there be any tribes which do not, they can only be 
such as have sunk to the very lowest state of degrada- 
tion. To say that religion is the invention of designing 
priests is no explanation of the phenomenon. In the 
first place, it is not true that this is the origin of 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 53 


religion; for, as Herbert Spencer says, ‘A candid 
examination of the evidence quite negatives the doctrine 
maintained by some, that creeds are priestly inven- 
tions.’* And, in the second place, even if the assertion 
just referred to were true, it would be far from proving 
that man is not possessed of a religious capacity by 
nature. Rather it would prove the very opposite ; for, 
it might be asked, why was there a demand for religions 
to be invented, and why were they so universally accepted 
after they were invented, if there be no religious capacity 
and instinct inherent in man?? 

But if man has religious instincts, capacities, and 
cravings, it is natural to expect that there must be a 
religion to meet and satisfy them. We find that the 
principle of adaptation is carried out in the universe, 
and that every instinctive craving and capacity implies 
and has its own corresponding object. The eye implies 
light, the ear implies sound, hunger implies the existence 
of food, natural affection objects of natural affection, and 
the desire for knowledge a universe where this desire can 
be satisfied. On the same principle, we may reasonably 
expect that the religious instinct or capacity implies a 
religion to meet and satisfy it. 

But it may be said that our religious instinct must, 
like the other instincts, be met, if met at all, in the 


1 First Principles, p. 14. 
* Cf, Calderwood, Philosophy of the Infinite, p. 421 (3rd edition). 


54 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


sphere of mere nature. We have no right, it may be 
argued, to look for a supernatural revelation of religion 
to meet our religious craving, any more than a miracu- 
lous supply of food to meet our hunger, or of scientific 
truth to meet our craving for knowledge. But this is by 
no means the case; for while it is true that our religious 
instincts, like the others that belong to our constitution, 
are real instincts, it is also true that they distinctly differ 
from them in being spiritual and supernatural. Accord- 
ingly, while the objects which meet our physical instincts 
all belong to the physical universe, and are directly 
within our reach, those that meet our religious instincts 
belong to the spiritual and supernatural sphere, which 
cannot be directly reached by us, and can be known 
with practical certainty only by revelation. In view of 
this consideration, we may reasonably suppose that our 
religious nature warrants us to cherish at least the 
expectation of a divine revelation. That such an ex- 
pectation is reasonable is surely attested by the fact, 
that the human race has ever been on the outlook for 
supernatural revelations, and ready cordially to receive 
those presented to it, even though they should be 
forgeries or merely supposed revelations. And when 
we contemplate the fearful mistakes which men have 
made in religion through want of an authoritative 
revelation, as may be seen everywhere in heathendom, 
and still more when we contemplate the high and 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 55 


momentous interests at stake, it must be confessed that 
such a revelation is needful in a supreme degree, and 
most devoutly to be wished. 

It is quite vain to reply that the light of nature is 
enough to guide the earnest inquirer with practical 
certainty in regard to the matter, and that we have but 
to look into the depths of our consciousness, to question 
our religious nature, and consult the oracle of reason. 
The anxious seeker, alas! finds no satisfaction, no 
practical assurance here. He looks around, and he sees 
that those who profess to be guided by reason have 
arrived at the most different results. The directions 
which they take, and the conclusions which they reach, 
are about as numerous and divergent as the lines which 
we can draw outwards from one and the same centre. 
Which of these divergent lines is the earnest seeker to 
follow? Which of them is the true, colourless light 
of reason? Is it the stark Atheism of Feuerbach or 
Bradlaugh? Is it the coarse Materialism of Haeckel? 
Is it the Pantheism of Spinoza, Schelling, or Hegel? Is 
it the Positivism of Comte, and the worship of collective 
humanity? Is it the Agnosticism of Herbert Spencer, 
or the Scepticism of Hume? Is it the Deism of Pro- 
fessor Newman? Or is it the more ethereal and lofty 
Theism of James Martineau? Is the seeker to believe 
that man has a soul, or is he not? Is he to believe that 
man perishes at death, or that he is certainly immortal ? 


56 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Or is the most that is permissible the bare possible 
hope of immortality, which was the utmost that John 
Stuart Mill could admit? Is he to believe that heaven 
and hell are both realities, or is he not? Amid such 
inextricable confusion and diversity, and especially on 
such essential questions, it is evident that a reasonably 
certain revelation is a vital need. In proportion as we 
believe in a God of fatherly love and mercy, in the same 
proportion shall we be inclined to believe that He will 
come to our aid by a special revelation if He can. To 
some it may even appear utterly improbable, next to 
incredible, that such a God would leave man, His poor, 
lonely, ignorant child, ‘an infant crying in the night, 
without extending to him His hand, or giving him the 
torch of revelation to light up his path. The inadequacy 
of human reason, the character of God, and the vital 
importance of the matter at stake, all alike point 
distinctly in the direction of a special revelation. 
This revelation,’ we believe, has been given us in 
the Bible, and more particularly, so far as we of 
the present dispensation are concerned, in the New 
Testament. 

It has been objected that an external or ‘book’ 
revelation of religious truth is an impossibility. We are 
writing at present only for those who are at least 
Theists, and therefore believe in the existence of a per- 
sonal God. To such there can clearly, one would say, 


- REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 7 


be no impossibility in the matter. There can be no 
impossibility of making such a revelation on the part of 
God. We ourselves can communicate new truth to men 
around us, and surely the infinite God can do the same, 
only in an infinitely higher degree. We can com- 
municate truth to other human minds with tolerable 
efficiency, even though we are compelled to do so 
indirectly through means of arbitrary speech, spoken, 
written, or printed ; and surely God, to whom all hearts 
_and minds are directly open, can at least do the same. 
How He may do so we may not be able exactly to 
analyse or explain, but one would think that what is 
possible for man in his imperfect artificial way, must be 
still more possible for God in His own direct and 
perfect way. And, on the other hand, when once the 
revelation has been communicated to the recipients, and 
expressed by them in an intelligent and permanent form, 
there is nothing on the part of man to prevent him 
from deriving unspeakable profit from it. The student 
receives the vast bulk of his mathematics and history 
from books, so that these books become essentially to 
him a written revelation of mathematical and historical 
truth. On the same principle, why should not the New 
Testament be to the Christian a revelation of new truth 
in the sphere of religion? Man, it appears, can give to 
man a revelation of new truth; and to say that God 
cannot do the same, is to say, as one has pointedly 


58 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


expressed it, that ‘what is possible with man is impos- 
sible with God.’! 

It may be said at once by some, This lands us 
directly in the theory of inspiration, which is just the 
grand initial difficulty and stumbling-block. But it 
must be distinctly understood that at present we have 
nothing whatever to do with any special theory of 
inspiration, orthodox or otherwise. We are, as it were, 
only approaching the New Testament and the grand 
truths which form the substance of Christianity, and it 
is clear that we cannot as yet logically have any definite 
theory of inspiration. Such a theory is, indeed, not one 
of the first doctrines that a man logically receives, but, 
as a rule, one of the very last. At any rate, we must 
have a reasonable historical belief in the New Testa- 
ment, before we can logically have any full and definite 
theory of inspiration ; for surely it is plain that we must 
first of all have a general confidence established in the 
New Testament, if our theory on the subject before us 
is to rest on its teaching as a foundation. We cannot 
expect that we should have some special supernatural 
proof granted to us at the outset, in the form of miracle, 
or personal revelation, or inspiration, that the New 
Testament is divinely inspired. We will not venture as 
Protestants to say, that a man must accept the doctrine 
of inspiration merely on the dictation and authority of 


* Compare Eclipse of Faith, p. 63 (5th edition). 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 59 


the Church. If we are to have a scriptural faith in the 
inspiration of the New Testament, and a truly scriptural 
theory of it, we can get these only from the New Testa- 
ment itself; and it is obvious that we cannot logically 
do so until we have a reasonable belief in its general 
truthfulness. But when we have once attained to sucha 
belief, we are logically prepared to accept its testimony 
in regard to inspiration as well as other matters. 

It is a very great mistake on the part of religious 
teachers to begin Christian instruction in the case of 
doubting, but thoughtful and anxious seekers after truth, 
by insisting at the very outset on the reception of some 
hard and fast theory of inspiration. It is to be feared 
that there are religious teachers who do so, who place 
their theory on this subject in the foreground, and 
almost require acceptance of it at once as indispensable 
to the study of Christianity, if not to salvation. But in 
doing so, we may safely say they act illogically, and 
peril the chances of Christianity, in the case of the 
doubting, on a doctrine which is not really fundamental 
or in the first rank. In adopting this course, they are 
guilty of the same mistake as a general would be, who 
would stake the fate of his country on the taking of 
some outpost or fortress of the second or third order, 
while there were many of the first class, both vastly 
more powerful and defensible, remaining behind. It is 
quite certain, in any case, that the apostles in their 


60 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


teaching adopted a totally different plan. They did 
not come to their inquirers with a definite theory of 
inspiration, to which they demanded assent at the very 
outset, and before they proceeded to take another step. 
On the contrary, their practice was to begin with a 
plain, bold statement of the fundamental and soul- 
saving truths and facts of the gospel. Their first 
supreme object was to get men saved, and then they 
left them to learn or work out afterwards their theory of 
inspiration. 

Perhaps, however, the question may be put here by 
some, ‘Is it meant that a theory of inspiration is not 
necessary to be believed in order to salvation? Cana 
man be saved without holding any definite theory of 
inspiration?’ To these questions we must unhesitat- 
ingly answer in the affirmative. Thousands have been 
saved who never heard of the doctrine under considera- 
tion, and thousands are being saved in our churches 
who have, to say the least, no very definite theory on 
the subject. Thousands have been saved who never 
even saw the New Testament, not to speak of having 
formed any theory in regard to its inspiration. We 
must ever bear in mind, and boldly declare, that men 
are saved by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as 
exhibited in the gospel, and not by any theory of inspira- 
tion. If a man has such faith, then he is assuredly in 
the way of salvation, whether he has any definite view 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 61 


or not in reference to the doctrine in question. Indeed, 
it is only when a man has attained to personal faith 
in Christ, that he is prepared for approaching this 
doctrine ; only then does he attain to the proper stand- 
point from which to study it ; and only then does he see 
it with the proper light falling upon it, so as to enable 
him to arrive at a right conclusion. 

There are three very distinct positions which may be 
taken up with regard to the doctrine of inspiration, ad- 
mitting, of course, of various more or less definite grades 
between. There is, first of all, what may be called the 
high traditional position. According to this theory, the 
Holy Spirit so completely and effectually directed 
and controlled the language and mind of the sacred 
writers, that the result was a book not only absolutely 
infallible in its revelation of religious truth, but also 
literally infallible in all its smallest details, whether 
scientific, chronological, historical, geographical, moral, 
or doctrinal. 

Another position, which seems also tolerably definite, 
is what we may call the theory of Religious Inspiration. 
According to this view, the object which God has in the 
New Testament is to teach religion, and therefore the 
inspiration extends only to the religious element. The 
phenomenon exhibited may be represented somewhat 
thus: God selected men, and put them by His provi- 
dence into-the very best position for knowing the 


62 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


outward historic facts, and being both eye-witnesses 
and ear-witnesses. Then He moved their minds by 
an irresistible impulse to write; He bore in, breathed 
in upon their minds the religious truth which they were 
to write, and so directed their minds in writing that 
they gave an infallible and trustworthy statement of 
religious truth. At the same time, because His object 
was not to reveal scientific, geographical, or even 
historical truth (except so far as it was essential to 
Christianity), they were left very much to their own 
information on such matters. Accordingly, their state- 
ments in regard to them are the common views of the 
age in which they lived, the views of thoroughly truthful 
men, but which may be sifted and even corrected by 
reasonable criticism. This theory seems also to give 
a comparatively definite and logical position, and, so 
far as the residuum of religious or theological truth is 
concerned, it gives us very much the same results as the 
preceding. 

There is yet a third and stili lower ground which may 
be taken. We mean the position that the writers are 
merely authoritative witnesses of what they saw and 
heard and received, without any supernatural presence 
of the Spirit to guide them in writing. In short, they 
are merely thoroughly qualified witnesses of the highest 
moral character, whose testimony is to be received very 
much like that of other perfectly trustworthy witnesses, 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, 63 


There can be no fair doubt that even this low ground 
logically admits of reasonable certainty in regard to all 
the great facts and truths of the gospel. It admits of 
the same certainty as we possess in reference to other 
well-accredited events of past history, certainty reaching 
such a high degree that there can be no valid or reason- 
able ground for doubt. For example, if an intelligent 
jury be engaged on the trial of a man accused of 
murder, and five or six competent witnesses bear clear 
and concurrent testimony to his guilt, they will unani- 
mously agree to bring in a verdict of guilty. They will 
do so without misgiving, even though they know the 
witnesses are not infallibly inspired, but are liable to 
make mistakes. They will do so even though there 
may be some points in regard to which one or more of 
the witnesses may appear to be in mistake, and not a 
few points in regard to which there may be a measure 
of apparent mystery and confusion which cannot be 
satisfactorily cleared up. Even in these circumstances, 
the whole jury may attain to such a high measure of 
certainty, that they have no doubt remaining in their 
minds in regard to the essential facts, to such certainty 
indeed, that they do not hesitate to bring in a verdict of 
guilty, even though it is to cost a fellow-creature his 
life. From all this we may clearly see that, even if 
the New Testament were not inspired, but only the 
composition of thoroughly qualified and trustworthy 


64 STUDIES IN TIIE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


witnesses, immovable certainty might be produced on 
the mind, such certainty as we possess in regard to 
the lives of Cesar, or Napoleon the Great, or the 
best-accredited events of past history. 

These three are quite distinct and logically conceiv- 
able positions in regard to inspiration. We do not for 
a moment say that they are all equally scriptural or 
correct; but we say emphatically that they are all views 
which may be held by a man who has saving faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. A man must not therefore think 
of saying, because he cannot attain to the first view, 
and can rise no higher than the third, that therefore 
his case is hopeless, and he need not trouble himself 
any more in regard to Christianity. On the contrary, 
when a man has got the length of even the third or 
lowest view, he has got enough to lead him into a 
reasonable faith in all the great events and soul-saving 
truths of the gospel, in other words, enough to lead him 
into personal salvation. Whenever we get a man up 
to the point of accepting the New Testament as the 
testimony of thoroughly competent and trustworthy 
witnesses, the first grand step is gained, and we can 
begin to press home upon him with effect the matter of 
his personal salvation. 

It is by no means an uncommon thing for some of 
the more extreme teachers of the high orthodox school, 
to declare and maintain that there is no logical halting- 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, 65 


place fora man between verbal inspiration of the most 
rigid type on the one hand, and absolute scepticism on 
the other. It is not at all an uncommon thing to find 
such speakers and writers at times constructing very 
pointed and strongly-expressed dilemmas to show that 
the inquirer is shut up by a stern necessity either to 
the one extreme or the other. But such a course of 
procedure we may safely believe to be not only quite 
unwarrantable, but even quite erroneous.’ 

The average man of fair and honest mind, who looks 
at realities rather than formal syllogisms, sees at once, 
by the higher logic of common sense and _ practical 
instinct, that such a style of arguing is false. He knows 
that there is a sound and trustworthy pathway between 
absolute verbal inspiration on the one hand and absolute 
scepticism on the other. He knows that between these 
two there is the middle way of reasonable moral cer- 
tainty, that practical certainty by which we are guided 
in regard to the general affairs belonging to human life. 
We have no inspiration to direct us in reference to the 
truths of past history, such as, for example, the leading 
events in the life of Alexander the Great, or Czesar, or 
the first Napoleon ; but it does not therefore follow that 
we are left in absolute scepticism in regard to these 
historic personages. In a trial for murder, the witnesses 
produced are not infallibly inspired, but the jury are not 


1 Cf. Briggs, Biblical Study, pp. 240 ff. 
E 


66 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


on that account necessarily left in a state of helpless 
doubt in regard to the guilt of the prisoner. We have 
no infallible certainty in the ordinary matters which make 
up three-fourths of our daily life, and yet we are not 
left in hopeless uncertainty with reference to them. On 
the contrary, the historian is practically certain in regard 
to the lives of Alexander, Cesar, and Napoleon; the jury 
bring in a confident verdict of guilty against the prisoner 
at the bar; and we feel reasonably certain in regard 
to the common affairs of our everyday life. In such 
matters as these, we clearly have a middle way between 
absolute certainty on the one hand and absolute scepti- 
cism on the other. Indeed, it is only for a compara- 
tively small proportion of practical truth that we have 
such certainty as amounts to anything like the absolute 
infallibility of verbal inspiration. And surely it is 
reasonably conceivable that a man may have high 
certainty with regard to the historical facts and doc- 
trines of Christianity without believing in verbal inspira- 
tion. Accordingly, though a man may not see his way 
to adopt this doctrine in its highest type, it by no 
means follows that he must be shut up to absolute 
scepticism. He may still hold by the middle way of 
moral evidence, which produces that practical certainty 
with which we have to content ourselves in matters of 
history and of human life and conduct. 

But the mode of reasoning just referred to, besides 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION, 67 


being unwarrantable and erroneous, is dangerous, and 
productive only of evil. We shall see this at once, if 
we consider how it is likely to act in the case of the 
thoughtful inquirer who has not attained to belief in 
verbal inspiration, and has serious difficulties in regard 
to the doctrine. Such a person comes across the 
dilemma referred to above, acutely and strongly put, 
and what is likely to be the consequence? It may be 
that by his practical common sense he sees at once that 
the argument, though very clever, is not sound, and 
immediately he loses all confidence in the trustworthi- 
ness of the author. Or it may be that he is possessed 
of a timid mind, and, being filled with a just horror of 
absolute scepticism, he shuts his eyes firmly, and com- 
mits himself at once and for ever to verbal inspiration, 
not as the result of sound conviction, but of mere blind 
dread. In so doing, he unquestionably suffers moral 
injury. Or, once more, it may be that the thinker is of 
a strong and impatient mind. When such a man in 
his state of doubt meets the dilemma, he may say, I 
cannot possibly accept this doctrine of verbal inspira- 
tion, and as this dilemma shows that there can be no 
middle way in the matter, I must just be content to 
cast myself into the arms of absolute scepticism. In 
this case the clever argument is productive of enormous 
Spiritual evil. | 


It is quite certain that we are not shut up by any 


68 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


stern necessity of an a griort kind to one or other of 
the two extremes, to verbal inspiration or absolute 
scepticism. We may reasonably hold to the middle 
way of practical common-sense certainty. As Chris- 
tians, we may, without doubt, have unspeakable ground 
to thank God that He has given us in the Bible a 
higher certainty than this, and that we have by His 
grace attained to it. But it does not therefore follow 
that we are warranted to denounce the inquirer who is 
in doubt in regard to inspiration, and to declare dog- 
matically that there is no possible halting-place between 
the verbal type of it on the one hand and absolute 
scepticism on the other. Rather we should urge him, 
on the ground of that which he sees to be true, to enter 
without delay within the sacred circle of Christianity, 
where alone he can be in the true position, and have 
the true light for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion in 
regard to the scriptural doctrine of inspiration. 

To make our present subject complete, it is necessary 
to draw attention to the importance of clearly keeping 
in view the special purpose which the Bible was meant 
to serve. It was given to man to be an authoritative 
revelation of religious truth; to ‘make us wise unto 
salvation ;’ to be ‘profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the 
man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto 
all good works.’ It was not meant to be a revelation of 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 69 


physical science, of geology or astronomy, of chemistry 
or medicine; and if any man betakes himself to the 
sacred books for an authoritative revelation in these 
departments, it is quite certain that his procedure is 
unwarranted, and can only lead to evil. The Bible 
holds straight on its way, and shows its practical 
common sense by sticking steadily to its grand object, 
and giving itself no concern about the different branches 
of physical science. When in the course of its narrative 
it does require to touch on such external matters, it 
simply does so in the current language and forms of 
the age, without meaning to affirm either that they are 
right or that they are wrong. Nor does an apparent 
mistake in the fields referred to, and arising in the 
manner now indicated, necessarily invalidate or even 
impair the trustworthiness of the Bible in its own 
sphere, any more than such a mistake destroys the 
authority of the scholar in the department of his special 
language, or the authority of legal counsel in the 
department of law. Indeed, such so-called mistakes are 
properly no mistakes at all, for the writer or speaker, 
in the cases under consideration, really means to affirm 
nothing either as to the truth or falsehood of his 
incidental statements, and only uses them on his way 
to express the supreme leading idea which he has before 
his mind. But although positive mistakes were made 
by the Bible in the field of physical science, even that 


7O STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


would not necessarily invalidate its authority in its 
own express department of religion, any more than a 
positive mistake in geology or astronomy would invali- 
date the authority of the scholar or of legal counsel 
in their respective spheres. And the reason of this 
is obvious; for in such cases the mistakes lie in an 
external and totally different department from that in 
regard to which the specialist professes to give authori- 
tative information, and therefore they ought not to affect 
his full trustworthiness in his own proper sphere.” 

It may be said that even revelation and inspiration 
conjoined have not succeeded in giving man reasonable 
certainty in regard to religion. Does not the very 
multitude of the Christian sects show that the matter 
is quite as doubtful as ever? Are not the Churches just 
as hopelessly divided as the philosophers or system- 
makers? We answer that this is by no means the 
case. Although the different sections of the Church 
are separated from one another outwardly, the division 
is more superficial and apparent than deep and radical. 
While the philosophers, as we have seen, are hopelessly 
divided in regard to the most fundamental questions, 
such as the existence of God, the soul, immortality, and 
the like, on all fundamental questions the Churches are 
at one. They are rather separate streets, squares, and 
quarters of the same great city of God, than separate 

1 See Appendix, Note VIL. 


REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 71 


and hostile cities. In any case, the underlying basis of 
unity in their common faith, spirit, and life is ten times 
greater, and of a hundredfold more importance, than the 
superficial accidents which separate them. In looking 
down from the summit of Ben Lomond on the lovely 
lake over which it presides, the traveller sees its 
southern end all dotted over with islands, separated 
from each other by reaches of flashing water. But at 
the basis these islands are all united, and consist of the 
same mother rock; and the waters of separation only 
require to be removed in order to make this plainly 
visible. And so we may safely affirm that the various 
branches of the Holy Catholic Church are all essen- 
tially one, and at one. in regard to the fundamental 
truths of Christianity; and we only require to look 
beneath the surface in order to discover that this is 
the case. 

We cannot see this radical agreement and unity in 
regard to the essentials of Christianity better than by 
looking into any of our Church hymn-books. We see 
there the unity of the faith and of the Spirit demon- 
strated in a very interesting and instructive way by the 
variety of Churches from which the hymns have been 
drawn. In looking into the hymnals of the three great 
Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and into /Zymus 
Ancient and Modern, we find therein many of the same 
distinctively Christian hymns, and these taken from 


72 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


very different Churches. From the Greek Church we 
have, ‘Art thou weary, art thou languid, Art thou sore 
distrest ?’ from the Roman Church, ‘Jerusalem the 
Golden ;’ from the German Church, ‘ Now thank we all 
our God ;’ from the Episcopal Church, ‘Rock of Ages, 
cleft for me;’ from the Wesleyan Church, ‘ Jesus, Lover 
of my soul ;’ from the Congregational Church, ‘When I 
survey the wondrous Cross;’ from the Moravian Church, 
‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed ;’ as well as from the 
Presbyterian Church, ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say.’ 
Surely all this is very instructive, and demonstrates the 
essential agreement and unity of the Church and the 
Church’s faith, notwithstanding the outward division 
and the so-called ‘war of sects. It matters only in a 
secondary degree in what street, or square, or quarter of 
the holy city a man may live, provided only he be really 
a citizen and live within its walls. 


Le 


EARLY HISTORICAL TESTIMONY TO THE AUTHEN- 
TICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


THE object of the following study is to give a brief 
and clear statement of the early historical testimony 
to the authenticity of the New Testament. In other 
words, it is an attempt in some degree to answer the 
question, ‘What historical evidence do we possess -for 
accepting the leading books of the New Testament as 
genuine and authentic productions of the Apostolic 
Age?’ The subject, therefore, is one neither of experi- 
mental nor internal, but almost solely of external, 
evidence. The field before us is of vast extent, and 
can be discussed within our present limits only in a 
very general way. Accordingly, we must in the sequel 
content ourselves with marking out boldly the leading 
outlines of the argument, without descending into 
details. 

Christianity is not a purely natural religion which 
may be thought out in all its minutia by mere human 
reason, working on the materials which lie before it 


74 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


in nature, physical and mental. On the contrary, it 1s 
a religion which comes down upon nature from a higher 
sphere, in order to correct fallen and disordered nature. 
That is to say, it is a supernatural revelation, a revela- 
tion which comes out of the heavenly sphere, and there- 
fore its contents can be known only from books or oral 
tradition. Very especially it is a religion which has 
its foundation in certain great supernatural facts, such 
as the incarnation, life, work, death, resurrection, and 
ascension of Jesus Christ. But these facts, though 
supernatural, just because they are past facts, can be 
known to us only by historical evidence in the form of 
books or oral tradition. In so far as we are concerned 
in this nineteenth century, we may drop oral tradition 
out of sight, and confine our attention to the evidence 
of books. But since the alleged historical facts and 
revealed truths of Christianity are contained in the 
New Testament, the question at once narrows itself to 
this: ‘What historical evidence have we for accepting 
the books of the New Testament as the genuine and 
authentic production of the Apostolic Age?’ 

It is probable that the vast majority of Christians 
accept the New Testament as authentic and trust- 
worthy, on the general testimony of the Church in the 
age in which they live. They look around and find a 
ereat society existing in the world, known as the 
Christian Church. It is spread over many countries, 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 75 


and it exists in many different sections—Protestant, 
Roman Catholic, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic, and 
the like. But however much these sections may differ 
from each other, and however bitter their mutual anta- 
gonism may sometimes be, there is one thing in which 
they all agree. They all accept the New Testament as 
the genuine production of Apostles and apostolic men, 
and fall back upon it as their grand foundation and 
authoritative charter. And this united testimony is not 
weakened in any way by the fact of divisions existing 
in the Church, but rather greatly strengthened, because 
it is shown thereby to be the testimony of jealous rivals. 

On the general ground of the united testimony of the 
divided Church, Christians, as a rule, at first accept 
the books of the New Testament as genuine and 
authentic. Nor is there anything unreasonable in this 
procedure. On the contrary, it is highly reasonable. 
It is very much the same ground as that on which men 
generally accept the facts of past history, and books 
that have come down to us from distant ages. If 
we ask the average man why he accepts such historical 
facts as the battle of Marathon, or of Bannockburn, or 
the leading events in the life of Alexander the Great, 
or of Luther, he will likely reply that it is on the 
ground that they are accepted by the general run of 
historians. If we ask on what ground he accepts 
Hamlet as the production of Shakespeare, the Pilgrim’s 


76 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


Progress as the work of John Bunyan, or Paradise Lost 
as that of Milton, he will very likely reply that it is 
because they are accepted as such by the general literary 
world. This is quite a reasonable answer, and it is 
the only one which the vast majority of men, even of 
educated men, can give. In very much the same way 
Christians, as a rule, accept the books of the New 
Testament at first on the general ground of the con- 
current testimony of the Church, and this ground, so 
far as it goes, is one which is quite reasonable. 

When we inquire what is the nature of this evidence, 
and what intelligent account can be given of it, the 
answer must be that it is mainly a case of historical 
evidence. That is, it is very much the same kind of 
evidence as that on the ground of which we accept any 
other book or historical fact coming down from the 
past. It is not, therefore, a question with which mere 
physical science, distinctively so called, has anything 
to do; for it lies entirely beyond its proper domain. 
According to the principles laid down in a previous 
study, physical science has just as little to do with the 
realm of historical criticism, as historical criticism has 
to do with the realm of physical science. Physical 
science, such as geology, for example, has nothing what- 
ever to say in regard to such historical facts as the 
battles of Marathon and Bannockburn. Physical science, 
such as astronomy, for example, can determine nothing 


ee ae 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. D7 


whatever as to whether Hamlet is really the work of 
Shakespeare, or Paradise Lost the work of Milton. It 
can determine nothing whatsoever in regard to such 
questions, for they lie entirely beyond its horizon, in 
the totally different sphere of historical criticism. In 
like manner, physical science has nothing whatsoever to 
say either for or against the authenticity of the books 
of the New Testament. It is an investigation which 
belongs to the totally different department of historical 
criticism and evidence. 

It would be a very easy matter to begin at the 
present day and trace our New Testament back from 
century to century, until we arrive at the ancient Church. 
But the work would be wearisome, and it is quite 
unnecessary. We are able to take a single leap over 
fourteen or fifteen centuries by the aid of three very 
ancient manuscripts of the New Testament, which, by 
a gracious Providence, have come down to our day. At 
this stage of our investigation, we cannot do better than 
cite these venerable and most valuable witnesses to give 
their testimony. 

Before calling these witnesses into court, it will be 
proper to make a few remarks by way of introduction. 
Of course, before the art of printing was invented, the 
New Testament, like other books, could be multiplied 
only by being written or printed with the pen. This 
employment of printing books with the pen formed one 


78 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


of the chief occupations of the monks during the dark- 
ness of the Middle Ages, and many specimens of their 
handiwork, beautifully executed and illuminated, have 
floated safely down to our day. Books so written are 
called manuscripts. Now there are many manuscript 
copies of the New Testament, which have come down 
to us from very early ages. It is a well-known fact that 
many works belonging to the classic literature of ancient 
Greece have been preserved to our time, almost enough 
to form a small library. But Tischendorf, a learned 
German, lately dead, who had perhaps more knowledge 
of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament than any 
man of our generation, declares that ‘Providence has 
ordained for the New Testament more sources of the 
sreatest antiquity than are possessed by all the old 
Greek literature put together. He here refers, of 
course, to versions, and references in the early writers 
of the Church, as well as manuscripts. The fact so 
emphatically stated is one of the very highest import- 
ance, and ought to be deeply impressed upon the mind 
as a means of strengthening our faith. It shows that 
Biblical scholars have abundance of material out of 
which to construct a trustworthy Greek New Testament. 

The first of the three ancient manuscripts which we 
cite as a witness is that which is called the Alexandrian. 
It receives its name from the fact that, in the seven- 
teenth century, it was brought from Alexandria,. in 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 79 


Egypt, in which city it had very probably been written. 
It is now preserved in the British Museum in London. 
It is written, or printed with the pen, in neat capital 
letters. It is agreed among scholars that it is about 
1400 years old, so that it takes us back by a single leap to 
the year 450 or so. Itis not quite complete, being some- 
what mutilated by age and wear; but it contains portions 
of all the books of the New Testament, and shows 
us most explicitly that the Church possessed the same 
New Testament about the year 450 as we now possess. 

The second ancient manuscript whose testimony we 
adduce is the Vatzcan manuscript. It is so called 
because it is preserved in the Pope’s library in the 
Vatican at Rome. Like the Alexandrian, it is written 
in capital letters, though they are not formed quite so 
beautifully. It is, however, somewhat older, its age 
being over 1500 years, so that it carries us back at once 
to about the year 350 or so. It is unfortunately incom- 
plete, wanting Revelation and some of the smaller 
Epistles; but it bears unmistakable testimony to the 
fact that the New Testament of that early age was 
substantially the same as we now possess. 

The third manuscript which we cite as a witness is, 
if possible, one which is more interesting than either of 
the two preceding. It is that which is known among 
scholars as the Szzaitic manuscript. It is so called 
because it was discovered in the year 1859 at Mount 


So STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Sinai, in the old monastery of St. Catherine there. 
Tischendorf, the German scholar already referred to, 
was on a mission to the East in search of manuscripts, 
when he had the honour allotted to him by Providence 
of discovering this inestimable treasure in that ancient 
convent. The circumstances connected with its dis- 
covery are quite romantic; but of course we cannot 
enter into them at present. He succeeded in securing 
it, and it is now safely deposited in the Imperial Library 
at St. Petersburg. It is the most beautifully printed of 
all the three. It is about 1500 years old, having been 
written probably about A.D. 350. It contains the New 
Testament complete; and thus it affords us the most 
explicit testimony that the New Testament of that early 
age was the very same as we now possess. 

We have cited these three venerable witnesses from 
the three capitals of Christendom,—the first from 
London, the capital of Protestantism ; the second from 
Rome, the capital of Roman Catholicism ; and the third 
from St. Petersburg, the capital of the Greek Church ; 
and we see that their testimony is most explicit. It is 
not only explicit, but it perfectly agrees ; and it demon- 
strates that the early Church possessed and used the 
same New Testament with ourselves about the year 350, 
or 250 years after the death of John and the close of the 
Apostolic Age. 

We are now ready to take another step back, and 


AUTHENTICITY -OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. SI 


here we come to the main part of our argument. Let 
the reader try to transfer himself in thought to the 
second half of the second century of our era. That is, 
we are now to contemplate the period extending from 
A.D, 150 to A.D. 200. The Apostle John, it is believed, 
died about the year 100, so that we have now before our 
mind the period extending from fifty to one hundred 
years after the death of John and the end of what may 
be called the Apostolic Age. We have therefore before 
us a period when men, not a few, were still alive who 
had seen and conversed with John, and when multitudes 
were still living who had seen and conversed with those 
who had seen and conversed with him. Such is the age 
to which we are now introduced. 

But before proceeding to call our witnesses, let us 
look for a little at the Church in this early period. It 
had spread over the length and breadth of the Roman 
Empire, and even into India and Ethiopia, and other 
regions beyond its boundaries. Probably it had not as 
yet the majority of the population in any large city or 
province, and very likely its entire adherents may have 
fallen short of two millions, Nevertheless, it had gained 
a footing in almost every city from Britain in the north 
to Ethiopia in the south, from Persia in the east to Spain 
in the west. | 

It must also be remembered that the books of the 


New Testament were habitually read on the Lord’s day 
F 


82 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


sn the assemblies of the faithful throughout the Church. 
This is a fact which is not denied and not deniable. 
The sacred books were thus kept constantly before the 
eyes and minds of the ancient Christians, so that they 
could easily detect whether any old and acknowledged 
book was rejected or lost, and whether any new and 
unauthorized book was introduced. In other words, 
this universal system of reading the New Testament 
in the public meetings of the Church enabled all Chris- 
tians to act as guardians of the New Testament and 
faithful witnesses to its integrity. We can easily see 
how impossible it would be in the present day to intro- 
duce any new book into the services of the Church, or 
drop any important one altogether, without all Christians 
noticing it, and raising a loud and.universal protest. In 
those early ages, when the New Testament Scriptures, 
although not in the hands of the people, were read 
much more extensively in the public services than they 
are now, we may safely conclude, in like manner, that 
no new book could be introduced or old one expelled, 
without awakening the attention of the entire body of 
Christians. What, then, is the testimony of the Church 
of the second half of the second century to the leading 
books of the New Testament ? 

We can, of course, directly ascertain what was the 
New Testament of this early age only from the repre- 
sentative authors who lived at the time. Happily a 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 83 


considerable number of books have come down to us, 
the works of Fathers and other men eminent in the 
Church during that period. There were also some 
translations of the New Testament already made from 
the Greek into other languages before the year 200. 
We now proceed to cite as witnesses some of these 
Fathers and Versions, and examine them as to the 
books which were then accepted in the Church as 
genuine and authentic. We cite them from different 
countries, and even from different continents, in order to 
show all the more conclusively and impressively, that 
the entire Church, throughout its length and breadth, 
accepted substantially the same New Testament as 
ourselves,1 

The first witnesses which we cite are from the 
Continent of Europe, and the first of these is the 
Church of ancient France. We call as the representa- 
tive and mouthpiece of that Church Irenzus, the bishop 
of the well-known city of Lyons. He was a native of 
Asia Minor, and had sat at the feet of Polycarp, who 
had sat at the feet of the Apostle John, and he probably 
sealed his testimony with his blood by dying as a 
martyr in A.D. 202. He was a somewhat extensive 
author, and his works which have been preserved to our 
day are enough to form a very considerable volume, 
That he is a witness of the highest character and value 


1 See Appendix, Note. VIII, 


84 “STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


is beyond all possibility of contradiction. And his 
testimony is full and explicit. He mentions all the four 
Gospels; and so clear and decided is the confidence of 
the Church, in his day, in regard to the matter, that he 
declares there are and can be only four. But as nothing 
gives the modern mind such a firm assurance as a few 
statistics, even though they should be immediately 
forgotten, we venture to give the following statistics of 
his quotations. They will be found to be at least 
approximately correct, and we believe rather under than 
over the mark.1 He mentions Matthew, and he quotes 
from him, either directly or by way of reference, about 
180 times; Mark, and quotes from him about 15 times ; 
Luke, and quotes from him about 125 times; John, and 
quotes from him over 80 times. It is therefore beyond 
all doubt that Irenzeus and the Church of France in this 
early age accepted our four Gospels, and them alone. 
But our witness mentions also the Acts of the Apostles, 


and quotes from it about 50 times; Romans, and quotes 


1 It is proper to state the method adopted in arriving at the results given 
in the following statistics. I employed the indexes of Scripture references 
given in the works of the respective Fathers in Clark’s Ante-Nicene 
Christian Library. I took the trouble to turn up more than a hundred 
references in each of the authors from whom statistics are given, ascertained 
in this way the relative trustworthiness of the references, and calculated 
the general results accordingly. With the exception of the references in 
Hippolytus, from which a considerable deduction has to be made, the others 
may be confidently accepted very much as they stand in the indexes. At 
all events, a deduction of five or ten per cent, will be ample, 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 85 


from it above 60 times; 1 Corinthians, and quotes from 
it upwards of 70 times ; 2 Corinthians, and quotes from 
it 17 times. He mentions also Galatians, Ephesians, 
Philippians, Colossians, and Revelation, and quotes 
from all of them frequently. He also mentions and 
quotes from many of the smaller Epistles. Such is the 
testimony of Irenzus, Bishop of Lyons, and witness of 
the Church of France. It is most explicit, and proves 
incontestably that already this distant Church in the 
latter half of the second century, from fifty to a hundred 
years after the close of the Apostolic Age, possessed the 
same New Testament as we now possess. 

We now pass over the Alps into Italy, and inquire 
what was the New Testament of the Italian Church in 
thisearly age. We cite three witnesses as representatives 
of this Church. The first is an ancient list of the New 
Testament books called the Muratorian Canon, because 
it was discovered and published by Muratori at Milan 
inthe year 1740. This interesting old canon or list of 
sacred books belongs to about the year 170, and there- 
fore falls within our period. It is a very imperfect 
production ; but it bears explicit testimony to all the 
books of our New Testament, except Hebrews, James, 
I and 2 Peter, and 3 John. The second witness which 
we cite in regard to the Italian Church is the ancient 
Latin Version of the New Testament. Already, at this 
early period, a translation had been made into Latin for 


86 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the use of the Christians who spoke that language. 
Perhaps it had been made originally in North Africa, 
but an edition of it was already current in Italy. We 
know the books which it contained from some very 
ancient manuscripts and the references in the ancient 
Latin Fathers. It contained substantially the same 
books as are mentioned in the Muratorian Canon. The 
third witness is Hippolytus, whose chief work was 
discovered within the memory of the present generation. 
He was a leading presbyter, and probably a schismatic 
bishop at Rome. He died as an old man and a martyr 
about A.D. 237; so that much of his manhood fell within 
our period. Of his numerous works, enough has been 
preserved to form a considerable volume. “And there 
can be no doubt as to his testimony ; for it is full and 
explicit. He quotes from Matthew, directly or indirectly, 
more than 50 times; from Mark, about 6 times; from 
Luke, about 25 times; from John, about 50 times ; from 
Acts, 7 times; from Romans, about 10 times; from 
1 Corinthians, about the same ; and in a similar propor- 
tion from most of the other Epistles, until we come to 
Revelation, from which he quotes about 18 times. 
When we take the testimony of Hippolytus along 
with that of the Muratorian Canon and the ancient 
Latin Version, we can have no hesitation, on the 
evidence of such witnesses, in concluding that the 
Italian Church in the second half of the second century 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 87 


already possessed substantially the same New Testament 
as we now possess. 

We next pass from Europe over to Africa. Right 
over against Italy, in and around Carthage, in the 
region of the modern Algeria and Tunis, a flourishing 
Church had existed from the dawn of Christianity. It 
was the Church which afterwards numbered among its 
bishops such men as Cyprian and Augustine. At the 
period under review, it could already boast of one of the 
most distinguished Christian writers of the age. We 
mean Tertullian, the first in time of the great Latin 
Christian authors. He was born probably about A.D. 
160, and died probably about 220; so that his testimony 
is valid for our special period. We cite him as the 
representative witness of the North African Church. 
And his testimony is most explicit and abundant. His 
extant works are somewhat extensive ; and in them he 
refers to, or quotes from, all the books of the New 
Testament, except Philemon, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John. 
He quotes from, or refers to, Matthew, about 400 times ; 
Mark, about 80 times; Luke, about 500 times; John, 
about 240 times; Acts, about 110 times; Romans, 
about 160 times; I Corinthians, about 350 times; 2 
Corinthians, about 120 times ; and so on proportionately 
through all but the very smallest Epistles, until we 
come to Revelation, from which he quotes about 80 
times. Such evidence as that just given requires no 


rst) STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


comment. Tertullian and the North African Church 
clearly testify that they used our present New Testa- 
ment in the second half of the second century. 

We pass eastward along the northern coast of Africa, 
until we come to Alexandria, in Egypt. In this ancient 
city, Christianity was planted in the Apostolic Age, 
and toward the end of the second century, it already 
possessed a flourishing theological school, which pro- 
duced a number of famous Fathers and Christian 
authors. We have more particularly to do at present 
with the well-known Clement of Alexandria, who falls 
within our special period. Like Tertullian, he left 
somewhat extensive writings behind him, many of 
which have survived to our day in the original Greek, 
They contain quotations from, or references to, almost 
every book in the New Testament, the exceptions again 
being such small Epistles as Philemon, 2 Peter, and 3 
John. He quotes from Matthew, or makes reference to 
his Gospel, about 180 times; he quotes from Mark 
above 20 times; from Luke, about I1o times; from 
John, above 60 times ; from Acts, about 20 times; from 
Romans, about I10 times; from 1 Corinthians, about 
150 times; from 2 Corinthians, more than 30 times ; 
and in a similar proportion from all the remaining 
Epistles, with the exceptions already mentioned, until 
we come to Revelation, which he quotes about 12 times. 
The outcome of all this testimony is very plain. The 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 89 


Church of Alexandria, the most learned, critical, and 
scientific Church of the agé, acknowledged, beyond all 
contradiction, the same New Testament in the second 
half of the second century as we now possess in the 
nineteenth. 7 

We now enter the Continent of Asia, in which most 
of our sacred books had their origin. We begin by 
citing the ancient Syrian Church as a representative 
witness. In Syria, the country lying to the north of 
Palestine, bounded on the west by the Mediterranean, 
and stretching away eastward to the Euphrates and 
beyond it, Christianity was already planted in the 
Apostolic Age. But as the Syrian language was totally 
different from Greek, being in fact a language cognate 
to the Hebrew, a translation of the New Testament soon 
became a necessity. Accordingly we find that a transla- 
tion was made into Syriac at a very early date, probably 
in the first, certainly in the second half of the second 
century. This very ancient version, slightly modified, 
not only exists to the present day, but is the * authorized 
version’ used by all the different sections of the Syrian 
Church—sections which go back to the fourth century. 
It is known by the name of the Peshito, It contains all 
the books of our present New Testament, except 2 and 3 
John, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. This testimony 
might be further corroborated by that of Syrian authors 
belonging to this period, of whom some remains have 


gO STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


been preserved to our day. But the Peshito itself is a 
sufficient witness, and testifies most explicitly to the 
fact that the Syrian Church already possessed substanti- 
ally the same New Testament as ourselves, probably in 
the first, and certainly in the second half of the second 
century. 

From Syria we may pass northward to Asia Minor, 
and cite the Church of this region as a_ witness. 
Irenezus, whom we have already examined as the 
representative witness of the Church in France, was 
a native of this region, and passed his early youth, he 
tells us, under the instruction of Polycarp, Bishop of 
Smyrna, who was the disciple of the Apostle John. He 
speaks of no divergence in regard to the leading sacred 
books as existing between the Church of Asia Minor 
and that of France. He rather teaches the very 
opposite ; so that this testimony may be fairly regarded 
as implying that substantially the same books were 
accepted by the Church of Asia Minor as were accepted 
by the Church of France, and as are accepted by our- 
selves. But, in addition to his testimony, we shall 
immediately see that long before the second half of 
the second century, the leading New Testament books 
can be proved to have been in current use in the Church 
in question. In other words, we conclude from circum- 
stantial evidence of the very strongest kind that in the 
second half of the second century the Church in Asia 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. OI 


Minor used substantially the same sacred books as the 
Church in the nineteenth century. 

Let us now endeavour to sum up this evidence, and 
ascertain the conclusion to which it points. We must 
remember that the evidence adduced is not that of 
individual, private, isolated men. It is the evidence 
of the Churches to which the writers belonged, of which 
they were office - bearers, and which they represent. 
Accordingly, the first conclusion evidently is, that 
already in the second half of the second century — 
from 150 to 200—and within fifty years or so of the 
Apostolic Age, the Church, over all its length and 
breadth, from Syria in the east to Italy in the west, 
from France in the north to Egypt in the south, beyond 
all contradiction possessed substantially the same New 
Testament as we at present possess. 

The testimony just adduced is extremely strong, 
though at first it may be somewhat difficult fully to 
realize its strength. It is that of a continuous, organ- 
ized society, whose life flows on without a break. The 
Church began with the Apostles. It spread out from 
Jerusalem ; it continued to live and grow without the 
least interruption, like a healthy human being. It might 
change its members to some extent, from year to year, 
by death at the one end and conversions at the other, 
just as the human body changes its constituent particles 
of matter. But amidst all this it retained its continuity 


Q2 STUDIES IN THE. CHRISTIAN’ EVIDENCES. * 


and identity, just as the human body retains its con- 
tinuity and identity, though it is said to change its 
substance entirely every seven years. We might in a 
way regard the Church as a gigantic mystic person—‘ the 
body of Christ’—living on continuously through the 
ages, changing its constituent particles slowly, but con- 
stantly keeping up an unbroken continuity of life. Its 
testimony accordingly is, in a manner, like that of an 
intelligent being who keeps on living through the ages, 
but whose eye becomes not dim nor his force abated 
through the lapse of years, We might even say that it is 
like that of several independent mystic persons; for the 
Churches of Rome, Alexandria, Syria, and Asia Minor 
assuredly had an independent continuity of existence 
from the Apostolic Age, so that their testimony is also 
largely independent. Keeping this organic, living con- 
tinuity of the Church vividly before our mind, we may 
most certainly accept the testimony of the Church in the 
second half of the second century, as valid not merely 
for the age in which it was given, but for eighty years 
before—that is, for the Apostolic Age. In other words, 
the testimony of the Church in the period specified, is 
valid in the highest degree for the age of the Apostles, 
and bears that the leading books of the New Testa- 
ment are the genuine and authentic production ot 
that age. 

We may be pardoned for dwelling a little longer on 


eS 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 93 


this point, partly because of its importance, and partly 
because of the extreme difficulty which we have, in this 
age of the printing-press, in realizing the power of a 
corporate body to hand down facts correctly by tradi- 
tion. Perhaps we may feel. the force of the argument 
still more vividly if we look at the matter thus. Let us 
start with the year 150. We have already seen that the 
Church most certainly accepted the leading books of our 
New Testament at that date. But the majority of Church 
members living in A.D. 150 were living in A.D. 145, 
and even 140; of those living in A.D. 140, the majority 
were living in 130; and of those living in A.D. 130, 
the majority again were living in 120; and so by a few 
steps we reach the Apostolic Age. The older members 
of the Church are constantly overlapping and living 
alongside of the new ones, thus keeping up an unbroken 
life and tradition, so that the testimony of the Church 
to our sacred books in A.D. 150 really reaches back to 
the first century. We can thus pass on from year to 
year, because of the vital organic continuity of the 
Church, until we reach back to the Apostolic Age, 
feeling firmly safe at each step; and conclude, with the 
highest certainty attainable in historic evidence, that 
the New Testament books are the genuine production 
of the age of the Apostles. Nowhere is there any break 
in the life of the Church, as if all its members had died 
out at any date, and, after an utter gap, the Church had 


94 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


been somehow started anew. In that case the argu- 
ment would not have held with such force. But the 
continuity is most assuredly uninterrupted —the vast 
majority of the members of any given year overlapping 
the members of several previous, and also of several 
succeeding years; nay, forming a constituent part of 
the membership of several preceding and succeeding 
years, so as to transmit the sacred books with an un- 
broken tradition. 

This living continuity, the vast majority of presbyters 
and members of one year overlapping on the one side 
those who die, and on the other those who are admitted 
in the same year, makes it next to impossible that any 
book once accepted should have been lost or rejected, 
and that any new and forged book should have been 
surreptitiously introduced. We only require to con- 
template how utterly impossible such an incident would 
be in the present day, to see how impossible it must 
have been even then. And what makes the argument 
stronger still is the fact that even the most determined 
scrutiny by the most hostile critics has not succeeded 
in pointing out the date, place, and circumstances after 
the Apostolic Age, in which any book of the New 
Testament was forged and palmed off upon the Church 
as genuine, and finally inserted in the list of sacred 
books. 


Perhaps it may help the reader to see more clearly 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 95 


and feel more vividly the force of the argument, if we 
adduce as an illustration the fate of the later works of 
Aristotle. He was, as every one knows, the greatest 
philosophical thinker, with perhaps only one exception, 
of all antiquity. His later works some time after his 
death entirely disappeared from the view of the world. 
They had been carried away from Athens to Asia 
Minor by a man of the name of Neleus. This man 
died, and the manuscripts remained in possession of his 
family. But when the kings of Pergamus began to 
collect their famous library, and were everywhere gather- 
ing up books for this purpose, the family of Neleus, 
afraid to lose their precious treasure, hid the manu- 
scripts in acellar. There they lay for a period of one 
hundred and fifty years, during which they seem to 
have been utterly forgotten by the world, or at least 
given up for lost. But when they were again found and 
brought to light, learned men had no difficulty, from a 
great variety of grounds, in coming to the assured 
conclusion that they were the genuine works of Aristotle, 
And this though they had been utterly hidden out of 
sight for a hundred and fifty years! If learned men 
could attain to such certainty in regard to the works 
of Aristotle, which had entirely disappeared for a 
hundred and fifty years, much more may we trust the 
testimony of the Church in the second half of the 
second century in regard to the genuineness of the 


96 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


books of the New Testament, when we consider that 
this testimony extends back only over eighty years 
or so, and that the sacred books were not buried out 
of sight, like those of Aristotle, but publicly read in the 
meetings of the faithful on the Lord’s-day throughout 
all the Church, north, south, east, and west. 

But we are not left to bridge over the gap between 
A.D. 150 and the age of the Apostles simply by an 
elaborate argument. We have also direct evidence of 
the utmost value. Happily a few small books and 
fragments have come down to us even from that early 
period, the period between the Apostles and A.D, 150. 
In these literary remains we find explicit testimony to 
our New Testament books as already existing and 
forming the spiritual food and ‘the palladium of the 
Church. Of the works of Justin Martyr, who was born 
in Palestine about A.D. 100, wrote at Rome about 140 
and later, and, suffered martyrdom there about 166, 
enough has come down to us to form a fair-sized 
volume. His works are not addressed to Christians, 
and are not of such a nature as to admit of extensive 
quotation from most of the New Testament. But in 
his remains he refers explicitly to the Gospels, though 
he does not mention the evangelists by name, and 
quotes from them all, although, like the ordinary 
preacher, often from mere memory. Indeed, his references 
to the life of our Lord are so numerous and abundant, 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 97 


that avery full narrative might be constructed out of 
them.! He mentions also Revelation, and if he does 
not quote from the Epistles, it is because they do not 
lie in his way. This testimony of Justin is valid possibly 
for Palestine and certainly for Rome, and for the first 
half of the second century. 

Another writer whom we can adduce as witness from 
this period is Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia 
Minor, a Church mentioned in the last chapter of 
Colossians. He lived and flourished in the early part 
of the second century, say about 120, and was the 
contemporary, if not the disciple, of the Apostle John. 
He certainly overlapped the Apostolic Age. Only a 
very few fragments of his works have come down 
to us, the whole of which might be printed on a 
single page. But from these fragments and the few 
notices preserved in ancient writers, we know that he 
used Matthew, Mark, and probably John, 1 John, 
1 Peter, and Revelation. This testimony is largely 
supplemented by that of Polycarp, martyr-bishop of 
Smyrna, also in Western Asia. He was both a con- 
temporary and disciple of the Apostle John, so that his 
life also overlaps the age of the apostles. A small 
epistle of his has come down to us, written pro- 
 bably about the year 115. It is not quite so large as 


1 See Sanday, The Gospels in the Second Century, pp. 91 ff. ; Westcott 
The Canon of the New Testament, pp. 101 ff. (4th edition). 
. G 


98 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Colossians, and yet it contains upwards of forty quotations 
from, or references to, our New Testament, taken in all 
from ten or twelve books. The testimony of Papias 
and Polycarp is valid for the Church in Asia Minor at 
the beginning of the second century. 

We mention only another contemporary of John, 
Clement of Rome. His life lay largely within the 
Apostolic Age. He wrote an Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, which happily we still possess entire. It dates 
from about the year 95, so that it is probably as old 
as some of the books of the New Testament. In this 
Epistle we find many sayings of our Lord which are 
found in our present Gospels, though Clement does 
not refer explicitly to the Gospels as his source of 
quotation. But he distinctly implies, either by quota- 
tion or allusion, the existence of Romans, I Corinthians, 
Ephesians, Hebrews, James, and 1 Peter. Such is the 
testimony of Clement, and it is obviously valid for 
Rome and the close of the first century. 

The testimony just adduced might even be con- 
siderably increased, if we were to descend into minute 
details. But the above will be sufficient to bridge 
over the chasm between the second half of the second 
century, in which the testimony is full and irresistible, 
and the Apostolic Age or close of the first century. 
The witnesses just adduced, especially when viewed 


in the light of our previous argument, distinctly show 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 99 


that about the year 100 the same sacred books as we 
possess at present were known and received in the 
Church. But this was a time at which the Apostle 
John was just dead, and, in any case, when multi- 
tudes were living who overlapped the Apostolic Age, 
who had themselves been the disciples and friends of 
the apostles, and who had even seen and used the 
original manuscripts. We therefore conclude that the 
leading New Testament books must have been the 
genuine and authentic productions of apostles and 
men of the Apostolic Age. 

Before leaving this department of the subject, it 
may be well to remark that it would be a grand 
mistake to suppose that we now have all, or even 
one-tenth part, of the evidence on which the early 
Churches accepted the books of the New Testament 
as the genuine productions of their authors. The 
vast bulk of the evidence which they had before them, 
and on which they came to their decision, has been 
lost for ever. Only the decision remains, with some 
stray and, for the most part, accidental facts of the 
evidence. But that is just what might have been 
expected, and it should in no way shake our faith. 
When we look back on important judicial trials or 
events of past history, we sometimes find that we 
possess only the decision of the judges or of the age 
in regard to them, but not the facts on which it was 


100 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


founded. Yet we have little difficulty in accepting as 
trustworthy the decision of competent contemporaries 
when that decision is consentient. And so it is here. 
The mass of evidence has disappeared, but the decision 
remains. We know that the Churches in Rome, Egypt, 
Syria, and Asia Minor, Churches which had a con- 
tinuous existence from the days of the apostles, and 
had all the facts before them, substantially agreed. 
The case has been tried, as it were, by different inde- 
pendent juries, in widely distant parts of the world ; 
they unite in returning practically the same verdict ; 
and surely we may accept the agreement, or rather 
unanimity, of the verdict as a reasonable substitute for 
the lost details of the evidence. 

We now pass on to notice briefly the testimony of 
the ancient heretics to the sacred books of Christianity. 
In doing so, we shall cite our witnesses only from the 
first half of the second century. We know that heretics 
had already appeared upon the scene in the days of 
the apostles, and they were only far too numerous still. 


One positive benefit, however, which they achieved for 


the Church in all succeeding ages was to leave behind 
them their decided testimony to the Christian Scrip- 
tures. In their case we have to do with the testimony 
of men who, for the most part, lived outside the Church, 
who were more or less hostile to orthodox Christianity, 
and therefore were sure to criticise its sacred books 


aed 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. IOI 


with no favourable eye. In the view of many, perhaps 
of all, this fact should make their testimony more 
valuable, as being that of men free from all friendly 
bias, as being in some degree the testimony of enemies. 

Now it is a singular and important fact that their 
testimony is very explicit. They fall back, as a rule, for 
their support on the same sacred books as the Church 
itself. So far as we can judge from their scanty re- 
mains, they seem even to quote more largely from them 
than the orthodox, and certainly some of them speak 
more profusely about them as ‘ Scripture,’ using the very 
same method of quotation as they do in regard to the 
Old Testament. And this mode of procedure is most 
significant ; for it implies that the Christian Scriptures 
were accepted by the Church of the age as the autho- 
ritative books, on which every system of doctrine must 
of necessity be founded. 

We adduce the testimony of only two _ heretical 
teachers from this early period, from A.D. 100 to 150. 
The first witness whom we cite is Marcion. This man 
was a native of Pontus, in the north of Asia Minor, 
and a son of the Bishop of Sinope, a maritime city in 
that region. He was born about the year 100, and 
afterwards removed to Rome, where he was already 
known as a full-blown leader of heresy about 140. 
And what is his testimony in regard to our New 
Testament? We know, on the best of evidence, from 


102 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


different sources, that he positively accepted an abbre- 
viated Luke and the first ten Epistles of Paul. But 
one of the great accusations brought against him was 
just the fact that he mutilated or rejected sacred books 
which the Church regarded as authoritative. In addi- 
tion to the books which he positively accepted, he 
bears distinct testimony, by a tolerably explicit rejec- 
tion of them, to the other three Gospels and Revelation. 
In other words, about the year 140, Marcion, the heretic; 
bears explicit testimony to three-fourths of our present 
New Testament ; and this testimony may be regarded 
as valid even for remote Pontus, and certainly for 
Rome and the more central regions of the catholic 
Church. 

We cite as witness only another and still more ancient 
heretic. His name is Basilides, and his chief sphere of 
life seems to have lain in Egypt. He flourished about 
A.D. 120, and, without doubt, overlapped the Apostolic 
Age by a number of years. A few very small fragments 
of his writings have come down to us in the form of 
quotations by the Fathers who wrote to refute his 
opinions. He laboured to support his views by the 
authority of the New Testament, and he often quotes 
from it, and generally as Scripture. We have explicit 
proof from the fragments and references which we still 
possess, that he accepted at least Matthew, Luke, and 
John, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colos- 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103 


sians, and 1 Peter; that is, decidedly more than one-half 
of our present New Testament. Of course it is not to 
be inferred for a moment that, because no allusions are 
made to the other books in the scanty remains which 
survive, they did not exist or were not acknowledged 
by Basilides. In other words, we see that this ancient 
heretic bears most important testimony to our sacred 
books, and it is the testimony of a man who not only 
was outside the pale of the Church, but whose life 
reached back into the Apostolic Age. 

The conclusion from all this is very forcible. It 
means that the Christian Scriptures were so firmly 
established, so widely accepted, and so well authenti- 
cated by evidence which could not at that time be 
controverted, that even heretics felt compelled to accept 
them and make the attempt to found their systems 
upon them. We may be well assured that if they had 
known them to be forgeries, they would have followed a 
different course, and shown them up as such, But not 
even Marcion, who rejected some of the books, pretended 
to do so, so far as we know, because they were forgeries, 
but only because in his view they were too Judaistic 
and one-sided. We may therefore extend to the New 
Testament generally the saying of Irenaeus in his great 
work, Against Heresies: ‘So great is the certainty in 
regard to the Gospels, that even the heretics themselves 
bear testimony to them, and every one of them starting 


104 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


from these Gospels endeavours to found his teaching 
thereupon.’ 

But after all, it may still be said, Is it not quite 
possible that the books of our New Testament may 
have been forged about the beginning of the second 
century? To this we answer, quite apart from the 
preceding evidence, that the thing is all but impossible. 
We know very well what the authors of that period 
could do, and there was not one of them capable in the 
least degree of forging books like those of the New 
Testament. We have but to read the New Testament 
carefully, and then go on to read the Christian literature 
of this age, in order to see and feel at once what an 
unspeakable chasm exists between the two. In passing 
from the Christian Scriptures to these productions, we 
are coming down from heaven to earth." Something 
like this is felt by all thoughtful readers, and frankly 
acknowledged even by such hostile writers as F. W. 
Newman. We know of no man, at the opening of the 
second century, who could forge a single book of the 
New Testament. But the New Testament must have 
been written by at least seven or eight different authors. 
This must appear evident, even to the most uncritical 
reader, from the difference of style in the books. If, 
therefore, our sacred books were forgeries of this early 


1 Compare Rogers, Superhuman Origin of the Bible, p. 3543 Schaff, 
Ante-Nicene Christianity, vol. ii. p. 634. 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 


age, there must have been several forgers at the work. 
But if there was not one man capable of carrying out 
such a forgery, much more certain is it that there were 
not seven or eight. If it, nevertheless, be said that the 
names of those able forgers have been forgotten, while 
the names of far feebler men have been preserved, we 
may safely answer that this is well-nigh incredible. We 
can scarcely conceive that the Church should have 
utterly forgotten the names of its seven or eight ablest 
authors, and preserved the names of men who, while 
they were heroic Christians, were nevertheless possessed 
of only average abilities, and very moderate literary 
power. This consideration of itself makes the hypo- 
thesis of wholesale forgery all but incredible, and even 
impossible. How difficult it is to explain and account 
for things, when people will not accept the simple, 
reasonable truth ! 

To sum up: when we remember the unbroken con- 
tinuity of the life and testimony of the Church, and the 
agreement of that testimony so early as the second half 
of the second century, in remote countries of Europe, 
Africa, and Asia; when we bear in mind that the New 
Testament was the very foundation and life of the 
Church, that precious palladium for which it lived, and 
for which it willingly shed its best martyr-blood ; when 
we consider that the sacred books were constantly read 
in the assemblies of the faithful, so that they were 


106 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


familiar to the eyes and ears of all, and also that no 
lynx-eyed enemy has been able to point out the occasion 
posterior to the Apostolic Age when any one of the 
books was surreptitiously introduced ; when we remem- 
ber that, by means of the scanty fragments which 
survive, we can trace them back into the Apostolic Age, 
and that even the heretics who lived on the very border 
of that age, unite in bearing the most explicit testimony 
to their existence and authority ; and when we further 
reflect that Church History knows of no man in the first 
half of the second century capable of forging a single 
important book of the New Testament, not to say the 
whole of it; we may surely see that the proof is about 
as strong as we can reasonably expect. No doubt we 
no longer possess all the details of the evidence on which 
the early Church accepted the sacred books; but if we 
do not possess these details, we have the decision of the 
jury ; we might say, not of one jury, but of many, and 
some of them unfavourably prejudiced. Men skilled in 
legal and historical evidence do not hesitate to accept 
as most trustworthy testimony the old charter of an 
ancient family or city which has been hid out of sight 
‘1 the muniment chest for a century or two; with how 
much more confidence may we accept the united witness 
of Christians and heretics in the second century to the 
authenticity of the New Testament, which is the charter 
of the Church, the true family and holy city of God, 


AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 107 


when we remember that only a few years had then 
passed away since this sacred charter was actually 
written out, and that, by the constant exhibition and 
reading of it on the Lord’s Day, it was kept continually 
before the eyes and the minds of the Christian people! 


V. 


THE TESTIMONY OF THE UNQUESTIONED 
EPISTLES OF PAUL. 


THE argument contained in the previous study may 
seem to many too distant, too long and difficult to 
master and remember, for men involved in the hurry 
and hard driving of a fast and feverish age. We can 
suppose such persons ready to ask, Is there no more 
brief and simple argument, which can be easily grasped 
and held as it were with the hand, by which we may be 
reasonably assured in regard to the ground of our faith? 
Are there not some New Testament books, for example, 
which are so well authenticated, and so undeniably 
genuine, as to command the unwavering assent of all 
reasonable and competent men, believers and unbelievers 
alike? To this question we now proceed, first of all, to 
reply emphatically in the affirmative, and thereafter we 
shall go on to deduce the legitimate and very important 
consequences. 

We pass, in the present study, from the testimony of 
the ancient Church and ancient heretics to the testi- 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 109 


mony of modern unbelievers and hostile critics. It is 
well known to all that the New Testament, during the 
Jast hundred years, has been subjected to the fiercest 
Criticism, of the most minute and searching description, 
and not unfrequently by men whose eyes were preter- 
naturally sharpened by the extreme of bitter antagonism, 
With the common ruck of ignorant and ribald enemies, 
whose minds have been utterly blinded or maddened by 
hatred of Christianity, and who can in no sense be 
regarded as authorities by competent men on either 
side, we have at present no concern whatever. There 
are hostile critics who, for their splendid scholarship, 
laborious investigation, and reasonable spirit, clearly 
stand out as representative men, and are universally 
acknowledged on both sides as such. With these we 
shall follow the same course as in the previous argu- 
ment, and cite as witnesses a few of such acknow- 
ledged representatives, selected also from representative 
countries. 

The object immediately before us at present is, to 
discover what are the books which the school of extreme 
negative criticism leaves remaining untouched as un- 
questionably authentic productions of the Apostolic 
Age, and of the authors whose names they bear. We 
take no books whatever into consideration in this study, 
except those which such critics with practical unanimity 
admit to be undeniably authentic. These books, it is 


ITO STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


well known, are the first four Epistles of Paul—Romans, 
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians—and the 
Revelation of John. 

We fix our attention first of all, and more especially, 
on the four Epistles of Paul which we have just men- 
tioned, and which the reader will do well to impress 
upon his mind. We have now to show that they are 
unhesitatingly accepted as authentic by the learned 
school of negative criticism with which we have at 
present to do. In order to do so more effectively, we 
proceed at once to cite as witnesses the three highest 
representatives of the school in Germany, France, and 
England respectively. 

We begin with Germany, and summon Baur as the 
representative witness. He was for many years pro- 
fessor at Tiibingen in Wiirtemberg, and hence his 
followers are sometimes called 'the Tiibingen School. 
He died in 1861. He was perhaps the most distin- 
cuished scholar and the ablest critic that the negative 
school has as yet produced, and he may be regarded as 
its head and grand authority in the present generation. 
But the testimony of Baur is most abundant and 
explicit. He says:—‘In the Homologumena [or 
acknowledged Epistles of Paul] there can be reckoned 
only the four great Epistles of the apostle, which take 
precedence of the rest in every respect—the Epistle to 
the Galatians, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, and 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. III 


the Epistle to the Romans. There has never been the 
slightest suspicion of unauthenticity cast upon these four 
Epistles, and they bear so incontestably the character of 
Pauline originality, that there is no conceivable ground 
for the assertion of critical doubts in their case?) This 
testimony is strong and emphatic in the highest degree, 
and is well worthy of being read a second time. We may 
just mention, in passing, that Strauss, whose name is 
perhaps more widely known in this country than that of 
Baur, and who created such a sensation in 183s by his 
Life of Jesus, frankly admits the same thing. He 
speaks of it as a well-known fact, in regard to these 
Epistles, that their ‘ genuineness is not contested,’ 2 

We pass from Germany to France, and cite as repre- 
sentative witness, Renan, the author of the romantic 
Life of Jesus, which startled the Christian world about 
twenty-six years ago almost as much as the earlier work 
of Strauss had done. But in regard to his testimony to 
the four Epistles under consideration, the head and repre- 
sentative of the French School is no less emphatic and 
categorical than that of the German School. He speaks 
of these Epistles as ‘indisputable and undisputed (épitres 
incontestables et incontestées) ;’ and adds, ‘ We have 
nothing to say of these Epistles [in the way of adverse 
criticism]; the severest critics, such as Baur, accept 


* Paulus, der Apostel, p. 276. English translation, vol. ii. pp. tro f. 
* Der alte und der neue Glaube, 8te Aull., pear. 


112 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


them without objection”? In another place he speaks 
of them as ‘being texts of an absolute authenticity, of 
complete sincerity, and without legends ;’* and once more 
he characterizes them as being, ‘dy the acknowledgment 
of all, of indubitable authenticity.” He accepts as 
genuine several other Epistles of Paul, in addition to 
these four; but what we have to note at present is his 
emphatic testimony to Romans, I and 2 Corinthians, 
and Galatians, as incontestably genuine productions of 
the apostle. 

From France we return to England. As the repre- 
sentative witness of the Home School of extreme 
unbelieving criticism, we cite the anonymous author 
of the work called Supernatural Religion. Like the 
representatives of Germany and France, he announces 
himself as ‘accepting the Epistles to the Galatians, 
Corinthians, and Romans in the main as genuine 
compositions of the Apostle Paul”* The expression, 
‘in the main, refers probably to the last two chapters 
of Romans, which he agrees with Baur in rejecting. 
He also declares in another passage: ‘As to the Apostle 
Paul himself, let it be said, in the strongest and most 
emphatic manner possible, that we do not suggest the 
most distant suspicion of any historical statement he 
makes. We implicitly accept the historical statements, 


1 Saint Paul, p. Vv. 2 Tes Apitres, p. XXix. ALes Evangiles, Vs Kh, 
4 Supernatural Religion, vol. iii. p. 323 (2nd edition). 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. I13 


as distinguished from inferences, which proceed from his 
pen.’* This testimony is scarcely less emphatic and 
explicit than the preceding. 7 

We do not need to produce further witnesses, for the 
testimony is most positive, unhesitating, and convergent. 
And the sum of the matter is this. We have cited as 
witnesses the heads and representatives of the unbeliev- 
ing schools in Germany, France, and England, and we 
find them uniting in the admission, that the first four 
Epistles of Paul are incontestably genuine and authentic. 
We have only to add that the critics in question agree 
in holding that the apostle lived at the time usually 
accepted by Christians. Baur holds that he died as a 
martyr under Nero in the year 64, and with this view 
the representatives of the French and English schools 
agree. 

Here then we have a definite and unassailable founda- 
tion on which to stand, even our opponents themselves 
being judges. The representative critics of the hostile 
school agree in accepting Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 
and Galatians, as unquestionably genuine Epistles of 
Paul, and have no doubt that they were written pre- 
viously to A.D. 64. We now accept this result as our 
basis, and proceed to inquire what it distinctly implies, 
In the sequel, it will be our object to show that even 
if our New Testament were cut down to these four 


1 Supernatural Religion, vol, iii. p. 496. 
. H 


114 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Epistles, we should still possess a clear statement of all 
the fundamental historical facts and doctrines of the 
gospel, and these at the same time supported by the 
very highest evidence. 

In proceeding to this department of our work, it will 
be our duty at the present stage to ascertain the value 
of the witness, who gives us his testimony in regard to 
Christ and Christianity in the four Epistles in question. 
In doing so, we have to begin by ascertaining the condi- 
tion and character of Paul before his conversion; and, 
of course, we are restricted to the four Epistles as our 
sources of evidence. From these we learn that he was 
a Jew. He speaks of himself as a Jew by nature (Gal. 
ii. 15). In contrasting himself with the false teachers, 
he says, ‘Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they 
Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ? 
So am I’ (2 Cor. xi, 22); and in Rom. xi. 1 he further 
declares that hé was of the tribe of Benjamin. As to 
his religion, he tell us that he was of the ‘ Jews’ religion,’ 
and was ‘exceedingly zealous for the traditions of his 
fathers’ (Gal. i. 14), which points to the fact that he was 
a Pharisee. He made pre-eminent advancement in his 
Jewish studies, was what we would call a most promis- 
ing student, and had every expectation of preferment. 
‘I made progress,’ he says, ‘above many who were my 
equals in years in mine own nation’ (Gal. 1.14). To 


crown all, he was a bitter persecutor of Christianity, 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. II5 


and gloried in wasting the Church. To this fact he 
refers again and again. He not merely says of himself, 
‘I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I per- 
secuted the Church of God’ (1 Cor. xv. 9), but refers to 
his persecuting zeal and activity as both excessive and 
notorious: ‘ Ye have heard of my former way of life in 
the Jewish religion, how that beyond measure I per- 
secuted the Church of God and wasted it’ (Gal. i. 13). 
Here then we have a bigoted Jew, full of his own 
Pharisaic self-righteousness, with the highest hopes of 
preferment in connection with his own religion, and at 
the same time a well-known and furious persecutor. 
His position is the most directly antagonistic to Chris- 
tianity which the imagination can conceive ; his educa- 
tion and his worldly interests are all against it; he has 
taken up his position in the most public and decided 
manner possible; and consequently, if such a man 
should ever become a Christian, we may conclude that 
the reasons and causes which lead to his conversion 
must appear to his mind to be of the most convincing 
and overwhelming kind. 

But the conversion of Paul to Christianity did take 
place, as appears from the four Epistles beyond the 
possibility of a doubt. Baur admits frankly that he 
was suddenly converted on the way to Damascus, and 
that ‘the apostle recognised in his conversion a super- 
natural event, a miracle, a thing incomprehensible even 


116 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


to himself’! Of the fact of his sudden conversion and 
its thorough genuineness, Baur and the other witnesses 
now before us do not entertain the shadow of a doubt. 
It is written in letters of sunlight on all the pages of 
the four Epistles. The burden and spirit of them all 
is Christ. ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ‘I am crucified with 
Christ : nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live 
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
Himself for me.’ 

But not only does the genuineness of Paul's conver- 
sion appear from the statements and general tone of his 
Epistles ; it was also tested in the most thorough manner 
conceivable and possible. The witness was sifted, cross- 
questioned, examined, we might almost say, by torture, 
and yet he adhered unflinchingly to his conviction and 
his testimony. He was a Jew, and gave up his people 
for the society of the unclean and hated Nazarenes. 
He was a proud and self-righteous Pharisee, and gave 
up his old religion for the religion of the despised and 
crucified Jesus. He gave up friends, and property, and 
worldly prospects for hostility, and loss, and worldly 
ruin. Hewho before had been a mad and malignant 
persecutor, not only became, with all his heart and soul, 
a Christian, but exposed himself to all manner of per- 


1 Paul, vol. ii. p. 275. 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. I17 


secution in turn for his new religion, and bore it will- 
ingly, unflinchingly, exultingly. He submitted not only 
to hatred, shame, and contempt at the hands of Jews 
and Gentiles, but to scourging, imprisonment, and even 
at last to a martyr’s death. Space does not permit us 
to refer to, far less quote, all the passages which might 
be adduced from the Epistles before us in illustration of 
his manifold trials and persecutions. One passage will 
be sufficient. In 2 Cor. xi. 23-27 he speaks of himself 
as being ‘in labours more abundant, in stripes above 
measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft ;’ and 
then he continues, ‘Of the Jews five times received I 
forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, 
once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 
and a day have I been in the deep: in journeyings often, 
in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from 
mine own countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in 
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils 
in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in weariness 
and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and 
thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.’ And 
if it be asked how the apostle bore these trials and 
persecutions, he is ready with his reply: ‘I take pleasure 
in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in’ persecu- 
tions, in distresses for Christ’s sake’ (2 Cor. xii. 10). 
Surely when we see such a transformation taking place, 
the furious and bigoted persecutor becoming himself 


118 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the persecuted Christian; when we sce him so tested 
and cross-examined by trial, and suffering, and death, 
we may certainly conclude that his belief in Christianity 
was of the deepest and intensest kind, and that he 
regarded it as the undeniable, irresistible truth of God. 
But we go on to say that if Paul believed Christianity 
to be true, then it must have been substantially true, for 
he had every possible means of attaining to certain 
knowledge. Our representative critics hold that he 
died in the year 64, four years earlier than the date 
usually assigned. Accordingly he must have been 
contemporary with the events connected with the 
founding of Christianity; for in the Epistle to the 
Galatians, which was written in A.D. 56 or 57, we have 
mention made of seventeen years (three and fourteen, 
Gal. i. 18, ii. 1) which had elapsed since his conversion, 
not to speak of the unknown years between the close of 
these seventeen years and the date at which that Epistle 
was written. This plainly points to the year 35 or 30 
as the time of his conversion ; and when we remember 
that he was old enough to have become a notorious 
persecutor before that date, we see that he was certainly 
contemporary with the events recorded in the Gospels. 
His very position and occupation as a_ persecutor, 
closely connected with the Sanhedrim, if not actually a 
member of it (Acts xxvi. 10), must have given him the 
very best opportunity of becoming acquainted with the 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. II9 


facts, of sifting them thoroughly, and of hearing all that 
could be said by the most able and learned Jews against 
them, or in explanation of them. He tells us also 
distinctly of his intercourse with Peter and John, the 
apostles, and with James the brother of the Lord, who 
were eye-witnesses of our Lord’s life, and must have 
had the best opportunity of examining into the historic 
facts of that life (Gal. i. and ii, and 1 Cor. xv.). He 
must have come into personal contact with some of 
the five hundred brethren referred to in 1 Cor. xv. 6, 
the greater portion of whom were still alive, and to 
whom he confidently appeals for testimony. He 
actually saw the risen Lord for himself, and received 
his revelations directly from Him. He speaks of 
miracles taking place in the circle of his own experi- 
ence, he is conscious of possessing the power, at least 
at times if not always, of working miracles, and 
obviously declares that he wrought such miracles him- 
self. We adduce these facts just now only for the 
purpose of showing that Paul had the best conceivable 
means of arriving at the truth; and therefore the facts 
and doctrines to which he testified by his teaching 
and his suffering, his life and his death, must have 
been true. 

We do not overlook the objection which may at first 
sight be started to the statement now made, namely, 
that many men have suffered and died as martyrs for 


B20 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


beliefs which we now know to have been quite un- 
founded; in other words, that many men have been 
‘martyrs by mistake.” This is no doubt the case; but 
it is not the case before us, not the case of the Apostle 
Paul. The martyrs referred to died for mere opinions 
or beliefs which were founded only on inferential and 
indirect evidence which might be and was fallacious ; 
but the apostle died for facts for which he had the 
most direct, overwhelming, and infallible evidence, and 
in regard to which he could not possibly be mistaken. 
He suffered and died, in short, not for opzzzons, but for 
facts, which he might have learned, and undoubtedly did 
learn, from the most direct witnesses, and to many of 
which he had the testimony of his own senses and his 
own consciousness. He could not possibly be mistaken 
in regard to what he saw with his own eyes, and heard 
with his own ears, or felt within the circle of his own 
natural consciousness, or actually wrought with his own 
hands, as in the case of his own miracles. We say he 
could not be mistaken in such a case, unless he was posi- 
tively insane; and when we find him suffering shame, 
loss, scourging, imprisonment, and death itself, for the 
facts and doctrines to which he testified, we must surely 
accept his plain statements as the plain truth. Accord- 
ingly, while the ordinary martyr by his sufferings and 
death only proves the genuineness of his Jdelzef, the 


Apostle Paul by his sufferings and death proves not 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. ed | 


only his own invincible belief, but also the moral 
certainty of the facts for which he suffered and died. 
In short, he had such means of arriving at the truth 
that he could not possibly be deceived, and hence, when 
he testifies to the historic facts and doctrines of the 
gospel, his testimony must be allowed the greatest 
weight conceivable and possible. 

Such, then, is the character of the witness with whose 
testimony we have at present to do, as it is recorded in 
the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians. 
We now proceed to consider the substance of that 
testimony somewhat in detail. And first of all, we 
would draw attention to the witness which the apostle 
directly bears to miracles and the supernatural as 
palpable and undeniable realities. We do not enter 
into this department minutely at present, preferring to 
reserve it for a separate discussion. But we draw 
attention to the fact that in these Epistles, the apostle 
bears explicit testimony to the gift of tongues (1 Cor. 
xiv.), and to his own supernatural vision of the Lord 
ft Cor. ix. 1, xv. 8)... He bears testimony no less 
explicit, though indirect, to the resurrection of our 
Lord (1 Cor. xv. 4-7). He speaks of miracles as 
undeniably existing in the Church (1 Cor. xii. 9, 28, 30, 
etc.), and even when reasoning with his bitter opponents 
at Corinth, he appeals, in proof of his apostleship, to the 
miracles which he himself had actually wrought among 


122 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


them, and which they could not possibly deny (2 Cor. 
xii, 12). According to all reasonable and fair inter- 
pretation of his language, there cannot be a shadow 
of a doubt that Paul in the four Epistles bears the 
most explicit and emphatic testimony to miracles and 
miraculous gifts as notorious and undeniable matters 
of fact. 

When we turn to our Lord's life, we find the funda- 
mental historical events in it referred to most distinctly 
by the apostle in the Epistles before us. If any one 
thinks that the references of this kind are strikingly 
few, it is at least a sufficient answer to reply that they 
are more numerous in the four Epistles than in all the 
other books of the New Testament, the Gospels and the 
Acts excepted. The facts to which the apostle testifies 
are mainly these: Our Lord was not only a Jew (Rom. 
ix. 5), but of the seed of David according to the flesh 
(kom: 1. 3). lt the statement that He was ‘made of a 
woman’ (Gal. iv. 4) does not imply the miraculous con- 
ception, it is still more certain that the other statement 
that He was of the seed of David does not exclude it. 
He lived most obviously in the first part of the first 
century, for He had already ascended before Paul's 
conversion, which took place, as we have seen, before 
A.D. 40; and yet not long before this, for James the 
Lord’s brother was a contemporary of the apostle. Our 
Lord had certain brethen (1 Cor. ix. 5), sons of Joseph 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 124 


and Mary, as we understand, and one of them was 
called James. He gathered round Him twelve apostles 
(1 Cor. xv. 5), chief among whom were Cephas and 
John, ‘who seemed to be pillars. He lived a life which 
was at once sinless (2 Cor. v. 21), and yet deeply 
marked by poverty and suffering (2 Cor. i. 5, viii. 9). 
At the close of His ministry He was betrayed at night, 
after instituting the sacrament of the Supper (1 Cor. x1. 
23 ff.), evidently at the season of the Passover (1 Cor. 
v. 7). He died by crucifixion (as we learn from nume- 
rous passages), and that at the hands of ‘the rulers of 
this world’ (1 Cor. ii. 8). He was buried, He rose again 
the third day, and appeared to Cephas and to James, 
twice to the twelve, and to more than five hundred 
brethren at once (1 Cor. xv. 3-7). The apostle refers 
also to the fact of our Lord’s ascension: ‘It is Christ 
that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at 
the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for 
us’ (Rom. viii. 34, x. 6). Indeed, the death, resurrec- 
tion, and ascension of Christ are everywhere interwoven 
with the texture of the Epistles. We may also safely 
agree with Baur with all assurance when he says, ‘ He 
who could speak so definitely and in such detail about 
matters of fact in the gospel history as the apostle does; 
could not’have been unacquainted with the rest of its 
chief incidents,’ ? 


1 Paul, vol.i. p. 94. 


I24 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


The views of the apostle in regard to the person of 
Christ obviously imply both a human and a divine 
element. No proof is needed that the former is the case, 
and accordingly our attention must be directed to the 
latter. With our unbelieving critics, the person of our 
Lord is next to nothing; He is only a man, dead 
for eighteen centuries, and we may hold the absolute 
religion without any reference to the person of Jesus 
at all. But with the Apostle Paul the person of Jesus 
is everything. ‘Christ Jesus was made unto us from 
God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption’ (1 Cor. i. 30). ‘Other foundation can no 
man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ 
(1 Cor. iii, 11). He says, ‘I determined not to know 
anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him 
crucified’ (1 Cor. ii. 2), and he speaks of his gospel 
as the ‘gospel of the glory of Christ’ (2 Cor. iv. 4). 
He everywhere makes salvation depend on our relation 
to the personal Saviour: ‘There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus’ 
(Rom. viii. 1); and ‘If any man be in Christ, [he is] a 
new creature’ (2 Cor. v. 17). Such a person as this 
implies must be more than human, and accordingly 
Baur admits it to be clear that we cannot believe Paul 
to have regarded Christ’s personality as originating only 
at His human birth. The apostle speaks of Christ as 
the Son of God, God’s own Son (Rom, viii. 32), in a way 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 125 


which evidently implies His exalted nature. He con- 
trasts his human nature with the ‘Spirit of holiness’ 
(Rom. i. 4), in which His Sonship had its basis, He 
speaks of God as sending His Son in such a way as 
clearly to imply His pre-existence (Gal. iv. 4), and he 
calls Him, as distinguished from ‘the first man, ‘the 
second man [the Lord] from heaven’ (1 Cor. xy. 47). 
In Rom. ix. 5, he speaks of Him as ‘over all, God 
blessed for ever;’ and again in 2 Cor. iv. 4 as the 
‘image of God,’ in whose face the glory of God is seen 
(ver. 6). He is the ‘Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all 
things, and we by Him’ (1 Cor. viii. 6). The apostle 
names Him in the Trinity of the apostolic benediction 
even before the Father (2 Cor. xiii. 14), and distinctly 
regards Him as an object of worship and prayer, invok- 
ing grace and peace, and other spiritual blessings from 
Him equally with God the Father (Gal. i. 3, etc.). He 
describes Christians as those ‘who call upon the name 
of Jesus Christ our Lord’ (1 Cor. i. 2); and again, he 
says, ‘Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord 
(Heb. Jehovah) shall be saved’ (Rom. x. 13, quoted from 
Joel ii. 32, LX X.), a verse in which he clearly refers to 
Christ, and practically applies to Him the name Jehovah. 
Christ is also reigning Mediator (1 Cor. xv. 24 ff.), and 
is to be the final Judge (Rom. xiv. 10; 2 Cor. v. IO). 
But the fact is that no reference to a few selected texts 
can possibly convey any idea of the importance and 


126 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


dignity of Christ's person in the eyes of Paul. He 
plainly looks upon our Lord’s divinity as an axiomatic 
gospel truth, and we have only to read the four Epistles 
with the purpose of discovering his views in regard to 
this question, in order to have this fact borne in over- 
whelmingly on the mind. 

When we come to the grand doctrines of Christianity, 
we find them all laid down in our Epistles in the clearest 
language. We find there the doctrine of the Fall: ‘By 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin’ 
(Rom. v. 12). We find the universal sinfulness of man 
clearly taught : ‘for all have sinned’ (Rom. iii. 23). Our 
Lord’s death is sacrificial and substitutionary: ‘Him 
who knew no sin, God made sin for us, that we might 
become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Cor. v. 21). 
He died for all, so that all died in Him (2 Cor. v. 14). 
He is the propitiation (Rom. iii. 25), our Passover Lamb 
who is sacrificed for us (1 Cor. v. 7) ; and He ‘redeemed 
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us’ 
(Gal. iii, 13). The salvation wrought out by Christ 
becomes ours by faith: ‘A man is not justified by the 
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ’ 
(Gal. ii, 16). The doctrine of the sovereignty of God 
is clearly taught (Rom. ix. and xi.), and the need of 
the Holy Spirit to quicken the merely natural soul 
(1 Cor. ii. 14). The apostle inculcates the necessity of 
sanctification (Rom. vi.), and clearly teaches the doctrines 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. | 127, 


of the resurrection, the final judgment, and everlasting 
life in heaven (1 Cor. xv.). It is obvious also that he 
regards his gospel as a finality, as the ultimate revelation, 
so that there is no room for change in regard to its 
substance: ‘Even though we or an angel from heaven 
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we 
have preached unto you, let him be accursed’ (Gal. i. 8). 

While we find in the four Epistles a full statement of 
the system of Christian doctrine, we find a no less com- 
plete statement of the system of Christian ethics or 
morality. We do not need to enter into this at length, 
for it is beyond the possibility of doubt. The root of 
Christian morality, according to the apostle, is ‘faith 
working by love’ (Gal. v. 6). He inculcates perfect 
holiness of body and spirit towards God (2 Cor. vii, I), 
and a complete surrender of ourselves to His service 
(Rom. xii. 1; 1 Cor. vi. 20). Towards our fellow-men 
‘love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom. xiii. 8 ff, xiv. 10; 
I Cor. xiii.) ; and he teaches us to carry it out into all 
the relations of life, not forgetting the conscientious 
discharge of our duties as citizens (Rom. xiii.), In 
short, while the true root of Christian morality is 
love, the perfect pattern of it is Christ (1 Cor. xi. It 
2'Cor, iii. 18). 

We also find in these Epistles tolerably distinct teach- 
ing in regard to the Church, its sacraments, and office- 
bearers. The apostle recognises the existence of a 


128 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


‘Church of God’ (Gal. i. 13), broken up into distinct 
churches or congregations (Gal. i. 2; I Cor. xvi. 19). 
This Church is composed of those who are believers or 
consecrated persons (1 Cor. i. 2, vil. 14), who are 
evidently admitted within its pale by baptism (Rom. 
vi. 3; I Cor. i. 13 ff.). He refers once and again to the 
Lord’s Supper, and gives the full and well-known account 
of the institution which we have in 1 Cor. xi. 23-20. 
The Lord’s Day is apparently the day of worship in the 
Church (1 Cor. xvi. 2), and the services consist in offer- 
ings, praise, prayer, and preaching. When we come to 
the office-bearers, it is true that we have no specific 
mention in the four Epistles of elders and deacons by 
name. But we find a Church constitution plainly taken 
for granted in our Epistles. In Rom. xii. we have dis- 
tinct references of this kind. The man who is charged 
with the ministry is to wait on his ministry ; the teacher 
on his teaching ; and he that ruleth is to do so with 
diligence (vv. 7, 8). In I Cor. xii. 28 the apostle 
mentions ‘teachers,’ ‘helps,’ and ‘governments, which 
we may reasonably suppose to embrace the two depart- 
‘ments of ruling and teaching that belong to the office of 
the presbyter, and also the diaconate. In Gal. vi. 6 he 
speaks of the teacher having a right to temporal support, 
and he inculcates submission to those who ‘have set 
themselves to minister unto the saints’ (1 Cor. xvi. 16). 
It may tend in no small degree to strengthen our 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. I29 


argument if we consider the extent to which the 
Church, according to our four Epistles, had already 
spread. We learn explicitly from their casual state- 
ments that before the year 58, when not more than 
twenty-eight years had passed away since our Lord’s 
ascension, Christianity had spread far and wide 
throughout the length and breadth of the Roman 
Empire. We read in these Epistles not only of the 
church at Jerusalem, but of the churches in Judza (Gal. 
i. 22). We find that the Church has made itself a home 
in Syria, and especially at Antioch (Gal. ii). The 
gospel has been preached in Cilicia (Gal. i. 21), while far 
north in Asia Minor, ‘the churches of Galatia’ are 
already in existence (1 Cor. xvi. 1), and the apostle 
addresses to them one of his four unquestioned 
Epistles. We also read of ‘the churches of Asia,’ 
that is, of the Roman province of that name (t Cor. 
xvi. I9), and Ephesus is expressly mentioned (1 Cor. 
xvi. 8, Ig). We read of ‘the churches of Macedonia’ 
(2 Cor. viii. 1), and the gospel has been preached even 
in wild and remote Illyricum (Rom. xv. 19).. We read 
of the churches of Achaia, or Greece; and of these we 
have special mention made of that at Cenchrez (Rom. 
Xvi. 1), while to that at Corinth two of his unquestioned. 
Epistles are addressed. By this time there is also a 
flourishing church in Rome, how and by whom planted 


we cannot tell, whose faith is famous throughout all the 
I 


130 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


world, and to which he addresses his most celebrated 
Epistle about the year 58, and certainly not later than 
s9. In short, though darkness still covers the earth, 
yet here and there we see multitudes of little fires 
already kindled, whence the sacred flame is sure to 
spread on every side until it meets, and all the Roman 
Empire is enveloped in the blaze. All this shows most 
distinctly that the Church reaches back to the very time 
of Christ, and that therefore multitudes of His con- 
temporaries, who had every means of testing the truth 
of the gospel facts, cordially accepted the faith, the 
self-same faith as we now possess. In other words, we 
have in these Epistles not merely the testimony of the 
apostle, but testimony accepted by a wide-spread Church 
whose members were really contemporary with most of 
the events. 

What, then, is the conclusion which we are warranted 
to draw from ‘the above, and that with the highest 
historical assurance? We see that the most hostile 
criticism, as represented by the acknowledged masters 
of the school in Germany, France, and England, unites 
in unhesitatingly accepting the first four Epistles of 
Paul as indisputably genuine and authentic. We have 
seen that the apostle is a witness who had the best 
possible opportunity of arriving at a full and direct 
knowledge of the facts, a witness who not only was a 
man of the very noblest and loftiest moral character, 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. I3I 


but who gave his testimony at the constant peril of his 
life, and finally confirmed it by dying as a martyr for 
the truth. We have further seen that his testimony is 
most explicit in regard to the fundamental facts of our 
Lord’s life, in regard to all the important doctrines of 
Christianity and the duties of Christian life, and in 
regard to the existence of the Church and the sacra- 
ments. Surely this result is most satisfactory. Surely 
we may feel confident in our conviction that in these 
four Epistles of Paul we have our feet upon the rock, 
and are at the very fountainhead of the stream of 
Christian truth. Surely we may reasonably rest con- 
tent as having attained the highest historical and 
personal evidence which we can possibly expect in 
regard to facts or truths transmitted from the distant 
past: for the evidence is practically the same as if the 
apostle were really standing before us, as if we saw 
him distinctly with our eyes, as if we had put him 
under oath, and heard him answer our questions with 
our own ears. 

But, it may be remembered, it was stated at the 
outset that there is another book of the New Testament 
which the representatives of extreme negative criticism 
are agreed in accepting as genuine, This book is the 
Revelation of John. It will not be at all necessary to 
enter into the discussion in regard to it with anything 
like the same detail, Let it suffice to say that Baur 


r32 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


declares that ‘the wudoubted result of convergent lines 
of proof’ is that it is the work of the Apostle John, 
written about the year 68,' and with this conclusion 
Renan and the author of Supernatural Religion sub- 
stantially agree. But when we look somewhat carefully 
‘nto Revelation, we soon find that even this peculiar 
book, whose object is not primarily to teach Christian 
doctrine, contains explicitly or implicitly the great facts 
and truths of our most holy faith. It teaches that our 
Lord is possessed of a human nature, is sprung from 
David (xxii. 16), was crucified (xi. 8), and rose again 
(i, 18, ii. 8). But He is obviously more than man. He 
‘5 ‘the Word of God’ (xix. 13), ‘the beginning of the 
creation of God’ (iii. 14), ‘the Alpha and the Omega, 
the beginning and the end, the first and the last’ 
(xxii. 13), and the object of the highest adoration (i. 5, 6, 
vy. 11,12). The doctrine of the atonement is distinctly 
taught. Christ is the ‘Lamb that was slain’ (v. 12, etc.), 
who ‘redeemed us by His blood’ (v. 9), who ‘loved us 
and washed us from our sins in His own. blood’ (i. 5). 
The followers of the Lamb are ‘called, and chosen, and 
faithful’ (xiv. 12, xvii. 14). The present system of things 
‘s to be wound up with a resurrection and a general 
judgment in which Christ will be Judge, and which is to 


be followed in the case of the saints by a blessed immor- 


l Kritische Untersuchungen, pp. 365 ff., 3763 Kirchengeschichte d. dret 
ersten Jahrhunderte, p. 147. 


—— _ - 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 133 


tality (xx., xxi, xxii.). We have even the trace of 
Church government not merely in the four and twenty 
elders, but in the angels of the churches. Here, 
then, we have the testimony of Paul in his four 
unquestionably genuine Epistles corroborated by the 
testimony of John in his unquestionably genuine 
Apocalypse, and it must be borne in mind that the 
latter was not only the contemporary, but the im- 
mediate disciple and companion of our Lord. Surely 
we may reasonably assume that his evidence con- 
tributes in no small degree to strengthen the evidence 
of Paul, which we have already seen to be so over- 
whelmingly strong. 

Before closing, it may be of importance to mention 
that in this study we have taken as our sources only 
the minimum of New Testament books, only the books 
which have been, we may say, unanimously accepted by 
the extreme representatives of the hostile school of 
criticism. It would be a great mistake, however, to sup- 
pose that these are all the books accepted by the general 
body of hostile critics. The truth is, as we shall see 
more fully in the next study, the present representatives 
of the negative school are gradually coming back to the 
recognition of more books as genuine productions of the 
Apostolic Age, and in regard to the so-called spurious 
books they agree in dating them much nearer that age 


134 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


than was done by Baur. Hilgenfeld, the present head 
of Baur’s immediate school, accepts not only the last 
two chapters of Romans, the three closing verses 
excepted, as the genuine production of Paul, but also 
i Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. He 
regards the Epistle to the Hebrews as not the work of 
Paul, but certainly written in the Apostolic Age, and 
probably before A.D. 66. He accepts the present 
Matthew as written soon after the destruction of Jeru- 
salem in A.D. 70, and as founded ona still older Gospel, 
while he assigns Mark and the Epistle of James to the 
reign of Domitian, A.D. 81 to 96. He also regards the 
portions of Acts narrated in the first person (‘we’) 
as genuine, and probably the work of Luke. In like 
manner, Renan accepts as genuine Pauline Epistles 
1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, and 
Philemon in addition to the four unquestioned Epistles, 
not to speak of the fact that he assigns to Ephesians, 
Hebrews,’ Mark and Matthew, Luke and Acts, James and 
1 Peter’ a date far within the limits of the first century 
and before the death of the Apostle John. 

We have a practical remark of the very highest 
importance to make in conclusion. The object of the 

1‘ The number of those who represent Baur’s standpoint whole and 
entire is, at least among German theologians, very small, In Tiibingen 
‘here is now no longer a Tiibingen School.’—Christlieb, Modern Doubt 


and Christian Belief, p. 547 (Clark). 
2 St, Paul, p. 1x. 3 St, Paul, p. xxxiil, 


ee 
ee 
——— 


THE UNQUESTIONED EPISTLES OF PAUL. 135 


preceding discussion is not merely to satisfy the logical 
understanding, but to lead up to intelligent faith in 
Christ: and unless this be achieved, very little is gained. 
It is quite true that such faith implies a moral element 
or state of soul, as well as an intellectual one, but the 
intellectual element is an important, even a necessary 
preparatory factor. Our present object is to contribute 
in some small degree to this intellectual preparation 
and element. And what we would now emphatically 
say is this, that in these five New Testament books, the 
minimum left us by the extreme representatives of 
hostile criticism, we have far more than enough to 
warrant saving faith in Jesus, to form the firm founda- 
tion of such faith, and to nurture it into the highest 
degree of intelligence, power, and fulness. The man 
who has a reasonable assurance of the genuineness and 
truthfulness of the books specified has no sufficient 
ground for remaining a moment longer apart from 
Christ, and does so at his peril. His bounden duty as 
a guilty sinner is, without a moment’s delay, to cast 
himself at the feet of Jesus as an expression of his 
penitence, faith, and self-surrender. And the very 
instant he does so as a real act of his soul, these 
books assure him that he is pardoned, accepted, made 
a son of God, and if a son then an heir; ‘an heir of 
God and a joint-heir with Christ. And as he comes 
to know the reality: of Jesus and His truth in the 


136 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


experience of daily life, he will soon be able to say with 
the Samaritans of old, ‘Now we believe, not because of 
thy saying: for we have heard Him for ourselves, and 
know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 


world.’ 


Vile 
SOME RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 


IT is generally and confidently acknowledged by the 
highest authorities of the modern schools of negative 
criticism that there are certain books in the New Testa- 
ment which are unquestionably genuine. As we have 
seen in the previous study, such men as Baur and 
Strauss, Renan and the author of Supernatural Religion, 
agree in accepting Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 
Galatians, and the Revelation of John as books incon- 
testably genuine and authentic. That is, these repre- 
sentative leaders of modern learned unbelief agree with 
catholic Christians in holding fast by the unquestionable 
genuineness of about one-fourth of the New Testament, 
and that a fourth containing over and over again all 
the essential facts and doctrines of the gospel. In 
regard to the remaining books of the New Testament, 
the position originally taken up by Baur and his more 
immediate followers was, that they were composed far 
on in the second century, and mainly between A.D. 130 
and 170. It is the object of this study to show that 


138 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the followers of Baur, and negative critics in general, 
have been compelled to retreat step by step from such 
an extreme position. 

One of the most convincing proofs of the correctness 
of a theory or principle is the fact that it is found 
exactly to fit into and harmonize with every new dis- 
covery, and to apply in every new region brought to 
light. For example, it is an overwhelming proof of the 
truth of the Newtonian law of gravitation that it has 
been found to hold good in the case of every new 
planet, satellite, and comet that has been discovered, 
and even in the case of distant stars whose movements 
have been reduced to observation. Now, the same 
test can be applied in some measure to the catholic 
or common Church view with regard to the age of the 
New Testament books. It is an interesting and well- 
known fact, that of late years not a few manuscripts 
of ancient Christian books have been unexpectedly 
discovered ; and the question becomes an interesting and 
practical one, Whether does the catholic or the antago- 
nistic view harmonize better with these discoveries? 
Do the recently discovered books fit in better with the 
view that the New Testament belongs-to the Apostolic 
Age, or with the view that it belongs mainly to the 
second century? We venture to affirm that there can 
be no reasonable doubt as to the answer. The dis- 
coveries referred to not only harmonize with the catholic 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 139 


view, but administer to the opposite view decided 
reverses, which at several points have even compelled 
its leaders to give up their position and beat a retreat. 
It is our object in this study to show that this is the 
case by adducing a few instances in detail. It may be 
true that the line of proof is not one which can be 
called direct, but we believe it to be an interesting side 
argument, which may, perhaps all the more on that 
account, tend to confirm our faith in the catholic view. 
We begin with the so-called £pistle of Barnabas, 
which was written about A.D. 120.1 Until 1859 this 
book was known only in an imperfect form, the first 
four and a half chapters being extant in Latin but not 
in the original Greek. At the close of the fourth 
chapter it contains these words, ‘ As it is written, Many 
are called, few chosen. The expression here quoted is 
found nowhere in ancient sacred literature except Matt. 
xxii. 14.2. Hence the conclusion was naturally drawn 
that this was a quotation from Matthew, and that the 
quotation was made as if it was acknowledged Scrip- 
ture. The unbelieving school, however, in effect, replied, 
‘No. This is only the Latin translation. The quota- 
tion was very likely inserted by the translator, who was 
some biassed Christian. If we only had the original 


1 Hilgenfeld, the present head of the so-called Tiibingen school, holds 
that it was written in A.D. 97.—Zzu/leitung, p. 38. 

2 It is also found, of course, in the T.R, in Matt. xx, 16; but there it is 
probably not genuine. 


I40 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Greek, we should find that it is not there’ But two 
original Greek copies have now been discovered, one 
by Tischendorf at Mount Sinai in 1859, and another 
more lately at Constantinople by Bryennios, now Metro- 
politan of Nicomedia. And what is the result? The 
old Latin version is absolutely correct ; for the quota- 
tion is found in the original Greek almost exactly as in 
Matthew. The conclusion from this is obvious; the 
Gospel of Matthew was already written and apparently 
acknowledged as Scripture. It is noteworthy that the 
author of Swpernatural Religion still endeavours to 
wriggle out of the iron grasp of the necessary inference. 
In a way which must fill many readers with amaze- 
ment, if not with something worse, he still struggles to 
show that it is not a quotation from Matthew at all, 
but from 2 (4) Esdras viii. 3: ‘There be many created, 
but few shall be saved.’ Surely comment is unneces- 
sary. The discovery of the Greek copies of Barnabas 
settles the question on the side of the catholic view, 
as even Hilgenfeld, the present head of Baur’s school, 
most cordially admits. 

In the year 1842 there was discovered at Mount 
Athos a copy of a long-lost book called Zhe Refutation 
of all Heresies, the work of Hippolytus, an author who 
lived at the close of the second century and the begin- 


ning of the third. This discovery has proved one of | 


the first importance for various reasons, and very especi- 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. I4I 


ally for the references or quotations therein given from 
the works or teaching of the ancient heretics. It is 
well known that Baur regarded the Gospel of John 
as written about A.D. 160-170. But what do we learn 
from Hippolytus? He deals at length with the heresy 
of Basilides, who flourished about A.D. 125, and he tells 
us that this heresiarch fell back on the Gospels, specially 
including John, for support to his views. He thus writes: 
‘And this, he [Basilides] says, is that which has been 
stated in the Gospels: “ He was the true light, which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”’! 
This quotation is unquestionably from John i. 9, and 
it is scarcely less unquestionable that, according to the 
laws of Greek grammar, Hippolytus puts the quotation 
into the mouth of Basilides, and even seems to quote 
from a book of his which he has in his eye. In other 
words, John was not written after A.D. 160, as Baur 
holds, but before the time of Basilides, that is, before 
A.D. 125. It may be noticed also that Basilides refers 
in the above quotation to ‘the Gospels,’ and uses them 
as being of acknowledged authority. 

The so-called Clementine Homilies played a most 
important part in the hands of Baur and his immediate 
followers in the contest as to the dates of the New 
Testament books. Down to 1853 these Homilies 


1 Refutation of all Heresies, Book vii. 22. For English see Clark’s 
Translation, vol. i, p. 276; and for Greek, Charteris, Canonicity, p. 173. 


142 . STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


existed only in an imperfect copy which stopped short 
in the middle of Homily xix. ch. 14; eleven chapters 
and a half of Homily xix. and the whole of Homily xx. 
being lost. The date of their composition is assigned 
to the middle of the second century, or a little later, 
say about A.D. 160. 

We restrict our attention at present solely to the 
bearing of the Homilies on the Gospel of John, Baur 
contended that they contained no proof of the existence 
of the fourth Gospel at the date of their composition. 
It is true that even in the imperfect edition we have 
quotations or reminiscences from John, which seem 
unmistakable to the ordinary reader, and which, if they 
occurred in any modern author, would be unhesitatingly 
referred to the fourth Gospel. We read in Homily iii. 
ch. 52 these words: ‘Wherefore He [Christ], being the 
true prophet, said, I am the gate of life ; he who entereth 
through Me entereth into life, a passage which can 
scarcely fail to recall John x. 9, ‘I am the door; by Me 
if any man enter in, he shall be saved. In the same 
chapter of Homily iii. we further read: ‘Wherefore also 
He cried and said,... My sheep hear My voice, — 
an expression which seems obviously quoted from John 
x. 27, ‘My sheep hear My voice” What makes it 
still more likely that these quotations are taken from 
John is the fact that they are both found in the same 
chapter of the Homilies, and correspond to passages 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 143 


in the same chapter of the fourth Gospel, a circumstance 
most naturally accounted for by the theory of actual 
quotation. Once more, the old and imperfect edition 
of the Homilies contains in Homily xi. ch. 26, the 
statement, ‘For thus the prophet has sworn to us, 
saying, Verily I say to you, unless ye be regenerated 
by living water into the name of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit, you shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven,—a passage which naturally appears to contain 
a free but undoubted reference to John iii. 5, ‘Except 
aman be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God. Such were the refer- 
ences to John in the older edition of the Homilies, and 
yet Baur and his followers, like the author of Szjer- 
natural Religion, could hold that they contained no 
proof of the existence of that Gospel, and therefore it 
did not exist, or had just come into existence, at the 
time when the Homilies were written. Consequently 
John could not have been written before A.D. 160, the 
approximate date of the Homilies. 

But we now have the Clementine Homilies entire in 
Greek, In the year 1853, a German scholar of the 
name of Dressel published a complete edition froma 
manuscript which he had found in the Ottobonian 
library in the Vatican. Now it so happens that the new 
and concluding fragment contains testimony of the 
utmost importance, For one thing, it settles that the 


144 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


author of the Homilies knew and used Mark, which had 
been doubtful up to that date. But it also settles to all 
reasonable minds the fact of the previous existence and 
the use of John. In the portion discovered by Dressel 
we have the following passage in Homily xix. ch. 22, 
‘Whence our Teacher, when we inquired of Him in 
regard to the man who was blind from his birth, and 
recovered his sight, if this man sinned, or his parents, 
that he should be born blind, answered, Neither did he 
sin at all, nor his parents, but that the power of God 
might be made manifest through him in healing sins of 
ignorance. ! This passage is obviously a free but real 
quotation from John ix. 1-3: ‘ And as Jesus passed by, 
He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And 
His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, 
this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus 
answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; 
but that the works of God should be made manifest in 


> 


him.’ So obvious is the quotation, that the controversy 
may now be regarded as settled in the estimation of 
reasonable men. Hilgenfeld, the present head of the 
dying Tiibingen school, at once acknowledged the 
question as finally closed.? ‘Volkmar admitted and 
admits that the fact of the use of the Gospel must be 


1 For the Greek of the quotations from the Homilies, see Charteris, 
Canonicity, pp. 184 f.; or Sanday, Zhe Gospels in the Second Century, 
pp. 287 ff. The English given above is from Clark’s Translation. 

2 Kinleitung, pp. 43 f., note. 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 145 


considered as proved. The author of Szpernatural 
Religion stands alone in still resisting this conviction, 
but the result, I. suspect, will be only to show in 
stronger relief the one-sidedness of his critical method.’ ! 
We now come to another interesting and most 
important point. It is well known that Tatian, the 
Assyrian, who flourished about A.D. 150-170, and of 
whom we possess one work, his Address to the Greeks, 
was the author of another work called the Déatessaron. 
The testimony of antiquity is so uniform and distinct, 
that thus far there never could be any reasonable doubt. 
This Diatessaron, as the name naturally implies, is 
declared by ancient writers to have been a Harmony of 
the four Gospels. The importance attached to this fact 
by catholic scholars and critics on the one hand, and by 
Baur and his school on the other, was naturally very 
great. If, as catholic critics generally held, it was a 
veritable Harmony, it was a clear proof that at the time 
when it was constructed, and of course long previously, 
four Gospels were regarded as occupying a position 
quite distinct, approaching to what we call canonical. . 
Further, critics of this class naturally considered that 
these Gospels must have been the present four. But if 
so, then John must have been received in the time of 
_Tatian as genuine, so that it could not possibly have 
seen the light only so late as A.D. 160, or even later, 


1 Sanday, Zhe Gospels in the Second Century, p. 288. 
) K 


146 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


as Baur’s School maintained. It was therefore of the 
utmost importance for this school to undermine the 
argument of the catholic critics, by showing that the 
Diatessaron was no Harmony whatever of the four 
canonical Gospels. The English reader may see how 
this is attempted by the author of Szpernatural Religion 
in his second volume (pp. 152 ff.). He makes state- 
ments like the following: ‘There is no authority for 
saying that Tatian’s Gospel was a Harmony of four 
Gospels at all. ‘No one seems to have seen Tatian’s 
Harmony, for the very good reason that there was no 
such work. And again, ‘It is obvious that there is no 
evidence whatever connecting Tatian’s Gospel with those 
in our canon.’ * , 

The question, however, seems of late to have been 
finally settled to the utter discomfiture of the school of 
Baur, and the complete demonstration of the perfect 
correctness of the traditional view. According to the 
testimony of antiquity, Ephraem, the Syrian, wrote a 
commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron. This commentary 
was regarded as hopelessly lost until lately, when an 
Armenian translation of it was found in the library 
of the Mechitarist monks, in the island of S. Lazzaro 
at Venice. This translation was published in Latin 
in 1876 by Professor Mésinger of Salzburg. Now, 
Professor Zahn of Erlangen has recently subjected this 


1 Vol. ii. pp. 158, 160, 161. 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 147 


ancient commentary to a most thoroughgoing criticism 
and treatment, and the conclusion to which he comes is 
most interesting and astonishing. It turns out actually 
to be Ephraem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron. 
And even since the above discovery an Arabic translation 
of the Diatessaron has been found, and was published at 
Rome last year. We therefore now know exactly what 
was the nature of Tatian’s famous work. And what is 
the result? It is found to be a consecutive Gospel 
narrative constructed out of a blending of our four 
canonical Gospels on a somewhat free principle. And 
Tatian uses John the most extensively of all the Gospels, 
adopting the chronology of that Gospel as the frame- 
work of his Harmony. ‘It may be observed that a 
difference is so far made between the evangelists that 
the text of St. John is almost completely adopted, 
perhaps with the sole exception of chapter iv. 46-54; 
next in completeness comes that of St. Matthew, while 
St. Luke and St. Mark are much more incompletely 
represented.’* The meaning of all this is obvious. The 
Tiibingen School, in their blind and desperate attempt 
to maintain the late origin of all the Gospels, and 
especially of John, have suffered themselves again to be 
misled, In the words of Professor Wace: ‘ There is no 


1 Lightfoot, Hssays on ‘ Supernatural Religion,’ p. 288. 

? Article by Professor Wace, Zxfositor, Oct. 1882, p. 301. Cf. 
Charteris, Croall Lectures for 1882, pp. 177 ff. Zahn’s Geschichte des 
_ Neutestamentlichen Kanons, pp. 389 ff. 


148 STUDIES IN TITE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


longer any doubt that all the four Gospels existed in full, 
and substantially as we now have them, in the time of 
Tatian, and therefore of Justin Martyr;’ for, as the 
author of Supernatural Religion expressly acknowledges, 
‘Tatian simply made use of the same Gospel as his 
master, Justin Martyr.’! 

One other point remains on which we wish to say a 
few words. It is the issue of the controversy in regard 
to Marcion’s Gospel. This heretic was a native of 
Pontus, but lived and flourished at Rome in the time 
of Justin Martyr, that is, about A.D. 140. He used a 
Gospel which, according to the consent of antiquity, and 
especially of Irenzeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius, was a 
mutilated Luke. There was no substantial reason for 
doubting this statement. But if it was true, then it was 
plain that Luke must have been written a considerable 
time before A.D. 140. This could not be admitted by 
Baur and his immediate followers, whose hypothesis 
required them to hold the late origin of that Gospel. 
What was then to be done? Of course, Marcion’s Gospel 
must be held and proved to be the earlier and the 
original Gospel, of which that of Luke was only a later 
enlargement, 

In Germany, the rectification of this grievous error 
came in its final stage, to its honour be it said, from 
within Baur’s own school. Volkmar and Hilgenfeld, 


1 Vol. ii. p. 159, 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 149 


two distinguished members of the school, were not only 
led by their own study to renounce the view of Baur and 
return to the traditional view, but by their thorough 
investigation as nearly proved as such a thing could be 
proved, that the ancient view was right, and that Luke 
was the original, from which Marcion had derived his 
Gospel by mutilation. So effectual was the demonstra- 
tion, that even Baur withdrew from his original position. 
The question may now be regarded as finally settled in 
Germany in favour of the priority and originality of the 
Gospel of Luke.! The statement of the Fathers is 
proved to be substantially correct, and Marcion’s Gospel 
turns out to be a mutilation of Luke. 

But the matter was not so speedily brought to a 
conclusion in England. The author of Szpernatural 
Religion, as might have been anticipated, still held out. 
He could even write: ‘The statement of the Fathers 
that Marcion’s Gospel was no original work, but a 
mutilated version of Luke, is wxsupported by a single 
historical or critical argument,’ and again, ‘If we except 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, Marcion’s Gospel 
is the oldest evangelical work of which we hear anything, 
and it ranks far above the third Synoptic in that respect. ‘ 

1 ‘Tt is enough to remark that the existence of Luke before Marcion was 
proved by Volkmar, Késtlin, Hilgenfeld, Ritschl, and Zeller.’ Holtzmann, 
Die syn. Evangelien, p. 403. 


2 Supernatural Religion, vol. ii. pp. 138 f. (4th edition). The italics 
are ours. | : 


150 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


But Dr. Sanday in his well-known volume, The Gospels 
wn the Second Century, entered once more into an 
elaborate investigation of the question, and succeeded 
in practically demonstrating the priority and originality 
of Luke. So convincing is his argument, that he has had 
the unlooked-for satisfaction of seeing even the author of 
Supernatural Religion, after the example of abler and 
wiser men, withdrawing from his wild position, and 
finally admitting that Luke and not Marcion’s mutila- 
tion is the true original. He now acknowledges that 
Dr. Sanday’s ‘able examination of Marcion’s Gospel has 
convinced us that our earlier hypothesis 7s untenable, . 
and, consequently, that our third Synoptic existed 
in his time, and was substantially in the hands of 
Marcion, He says that Dr. Sanday’s argument 
must ‘prove irresistible to all’ critics, and that ‘it 
is not possible reasonably to maintain’ his previous 
view.! After such an admission coming from such a 
quarter, we may safely say, with Professor Salmon 
of Dublin, ‘The theory that Marcion’s form [of the 
Gospel] is the original, may be said to be now com- 
pletely exploded.’ 

In the preceding pages we have dwelt on individual 
points by way of illustration ; it now remains for us to 
give an indication of the general current of the tide of 
opinion in the critical world. Even in the negative 


1 Supernatural Religion, complete edition (1879), vol. ii. pp. 138 f. 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. I51 


critical world, in the very school of Baur himself, the 
current of opinion in regard to the dates of the leading 
books of the New Testament, has begun distinctly to 
flow back. A brief general statement will be sufficient 
to make this luminous. Baur regarded Matthew as 
written after A.D. 130; Hilgenfeld, the present head of 
Baur’s School, holds it to have been written ‘immedi- 
ately’ after the destruction of Jerusalem, say about 
A.D. 70; while Renan regards it as written about A.D. 84. 
Baur originally regarded Luke and Mark as written 
about A.D. 150 or later ; but both Hilgenfeld and Renan 
agree in placing their date more or less decidedly within 
the first century, and therefore within the Apostolic Age. 
The case with John is very instructive. Baur regarded 
it as written about A.D. 160 or even 170; Hilgenfeld 
assigns it to A.D. 130-140; while Renan, after a good 
deal of vacillation, holds at present to about A.D. 125. 
Baur held Acts to be written about the middle of the 
second century ; Hilgenfeld regards it as written after 
the close of the first century, but maintains that the 
portions narrated in the first person were the genuine 
work of Luke; while Renan assigns it to the first 
century. Baur regarded Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 
and Galatians, as the only genuine Pauline Epistles; 
but in addition to these, Hilgenfeld accepts also 1 Thes- 
salonians, Philippians, and Philemon; while Renan, also 
in addition, accepts 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, 


152 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Colossians, and Philemon, and although he regards 
Ephesians as doubtful, yet he says that’ ‘in any case 
it belongs to the Apostolic Age’ Baur relegated all 
the remaining books of the New Testament, except, of 
course, the Revelation of John, to the second century ; 
besides those specified above, Hilgenfeld assigns to the 
first century Hebrews (c. A.D. 66) and James (A.D. 
81-96); while Renan assigns to the same century, 
Ephesians, Hebrews, James, and 1 Peter. In like 
manner Holtzmann, in addition to the first four Epistles 
of Paul, accepts 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Colos- 
sians and Philemon in the main, as the production of 
that apostle ; while he not only accepts Revelation as 
the work of John, but assigns Matthew, Mark, and even 
Luke and Hebrews to the first century. 

It may be interesting to concentrate our attention for 
a moment on the four Gospels, in order to discover the 
amount of retreat which has taken place more especially 
with regard to them, For the sake of clearness, and 
with the view of bringing the state of matters under the 
eye at a single glance, we have summed up the general 
results in the following table, which will speak for itself. 
The separate columns are headed with the names of 
well-known representative critics ; and under the names 
are found the dates to which Fee critics respectively 
assign the composition of the different Gospels. The 
name of Weiss is added for the sake of comparison, as a 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 153 


liberal representative of the catholic or common Church 


view. 


Volkmar 
Schenkel. 
Hilgenfeld. 
Holtzmann. 


ro 
s 
ws 
jaa) 


Matthew, 130+ Ic. 110 70 7o+| 84 | 66 68 70-+ 


Mark, .|-150+!] 73 58 81+) 76] 100 75 69 
Luke; in \c. 159 100-3| 80 |c. 100 94} 90 So 80 
John, . 160+|c.150 | 120 130+] 125 | 130 |c. 125 | c. 95 


605 | 434 | 328 | 396 | 379 | 386] 348] 319 


The above table may be accepted as approximately 
correct. We have summed up the different columns, 
making allowance for the indefinite dates marked +, in 
order that the general results may strike the eye all the 
more forcibly. These results are very significant. The 
sum-total under Baur is 605, and by comparing with this 
the numbers under the other names respectively, the 
reader will notice at once the aggregate retreat in years 
in each case. It will be seen that the retreat is very 
substantial, being considerably more than 200 years on 
the whole, and the movement is still going on in the 
the same direction. In view of all this, Holtzmann 
makes the frank confession: ‘We find in the Tibingen 
School a universal movement backwards, until at last 
Hilgenfeld makes the Gospel literature end at the date 


154 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


at which Baur had only made it begin’! It should 
also be remembered that most of the authors adduced 
in the table hold that written documents or Gospels 
existed at a decidedly earlier date than the canonical 
Gospels, and furnished the main substance of the latter ; 
so that, with regard to their original material, we are 
carried back to a time quite within the period generally 
assigned by the Church for the composition of the 
Gospels. 

If we now try to sum up the above in a general way, 
we have the following striking result. According to 
Baur and his immediate followers, we have less than one- 
Jourth of the New Testament belonging to the first century. 
According to Hilgenfeld, the present head of Baur’s School, 
we have somewhat less than three-fourths belonging to the 
jirst century, while substantially the same thing may be 
said in regard to Holtzmann. According to Renan, we 
have distinctly more than three-fourths of the New Testa- 
ment falling within the first century, and therefore within 
the Apostolic Age. This surely indicates a very decided 
and extraordinary retreat since the time of Baur’s grand 
assault, that is, within the last fifty years. 

Such are a few of the reverses sustained of late years 
by the critics of the extreme negative school, and such 
is their substantial retreat, The general result of the 
whole is most significant, and confirmatory of the 


1 Die synoptischen Evangelien, P- 403. 


RECENT REVERSES OF NEGATIVE CRITICISM. 155 


catholic belief in regard to the age of the leading books 
of the New Testament. And let it be noted that the 
strength of the argument is to be seen not so much in 
the points separately as in the general drift of the whole. 
Every new discovery has not only fallen in harmoniously 
with the view commonly held in the Church, but has 
distinctly tended to confirm it, while in some cases it 
has been dead against the extreme school of unbelief. 
Moreover, the distinct and general tendency of the 
leading authorities on the side of negative criticism, has 
been to move the date of the chief New Testament 
books back nearer and nearer to the Apostolic Age, until 
at last, as we have seen, instead of only one-fourth, they 
agree that about ¢hree-fourths of the New Testament 
were actually written before the death of the Apostle 
John. 

When the age of historical criticism came, it was 
impossible that the books of the New Testament could 
escape the fire. They had of necessity to pass through 
the ordeal just like other ancient books, and it will be 
found in the long run that it was well for the Church 
that it was so. We have reason to believe that the 
battle of dates is drawing near its close, with the victory 
obviously inclining to the side of the catholic view, 
namely, that the Christian Scriptures belong to the 
Apostolic Age. When the battle has once been fought 
out, and our sacred books have been proved and ac- 


156 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


knowledged even by negative critics themselves to fall 
within the first century, we may reasonably hope that a 
day will dawn of firmer faith than ever in these books. 
After they have stood the fire of such criticism as no 
ancient books have ever undergone, and the unwilling 
testimony of enemies is found substantially to coincide 
with the testimony of friends, surely all future ages may 
regard them as practically unassailable. The battle had 
to be fought out; but the victory is now in view, and 
fought out once, it is fought out for ever. 


We Ts 
TuE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 


It is our object in the present study to discuss the 
subject of miracles, which may be emphatically said 
to be one of the ‘burning questions’ of the age. In 
approaching it, it is not at all necessary for our purpose 
that we enter into any abstruse analysis or elaborate 
definition of what a miracle really is. Our object is 
mainly practical, and all that is required is a definition 
which is essentially correct and sufficient for working 
purposes. 

We find around us everywhere in the world a realm 
and order of physical nature, in whose network we live. 
This system is made up of matter, physical force, and 
the so-called laws of nature. Viewed from the merely 
scientific side, these laws work by physical necessity, 
moving on in straight lines, so that their action can be 
expressed by mathematical formule or equations. _ But 
when a being possessed of intelligence and free-will 
interferes with the necessary course of nature, works 
on or in nature, so as by means of his intelligent 


158 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


volitions or will to make an entirely new beginning, and 
produce an entirely new result or event which never 
could have been produced by mere physical forces 
themselves, working according to their own laws, then 
we have the essential element of a miracle. It matters 
not whether the action be that of a man, an angel, or 
God: in the direct interference of an intelligent will 
in the iron course of nature, so as to produce a new and 
designed result totally above the power of mere physical 
forces, we have the very soul of the miraculous and 
supernatural. In ordinary language, however, the term 
miracle is generally restricted to visible results produced 
in nature by superhuman agents; and more particu- 
larly still, to visible results produced in nature for a 
definite purpose by the special and direct volition of 
God. As examples of what we mean may be instanced 
any of the miracles of Christ, such as stilling the storm, 
changing water into wine, healing the sick, raising the 
dead, and all by a direct volition brought to bear in 
and upon nature. It is with the word in this last sense 
that we have more immediately to do. 

It must be obvious that miracles, as now described, 
cannot be ordinary events. If they were so, they would 
not indeed cease to be essentially miracles, but they 
would lose much of their evidential power, and would 
largely interfere with human action and moral training, 
In such a case, God by His constant miracles would 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 159 


not only cast a slight upon His laws of nature which He 
has established for man’s guidance, but would make 
a scientific knowledge of those laws, and calm confidence 
in them, next to an impossibility. The true view is, 
that for ordinary life and history we have to look to the 
ordinary laws as the visible or perceptible factors, while 
the miracles with which we have now to do are only 
introduced in connection with the birth of Christianity 
to authenticate the divine Commissioner, and show that 
the new religion is one of supernatural origin and 
contents, power and purpose. Just as man sprang into 
being at first in a special way, which, whether the way 
of direct creation or modified evolution, has never been 
seen in a single case in all the countless millions that 
have lived since history began, so also was it with the 
origin of Christianity. Just as a singular manifestation 
of divine volition and power was put forth at the origin 
of the new race, so, in like manner, a singular manifesta- 
tion of divine power and volition in the form of miracles 
accompanied the introduction of the new religion into 
the world. But as the new race after its origin was left, 
as a rule, externally to the ordinary laws of nature and 
history which were pre-ordained with a view to its life, 
so was it to a large extent with the new religion. 
Continuous visible miracles were no more required in 
this case than in the other, and the new religion was 
left to make itself at home in the current of physical 


160 STUDIES IN. THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


forces with their laws which had been pre-ordained of 
God with this purpose distinctly in view. When a 
person empties a vessel full of highly coloured dye into 
the mountain stream, it produces in the act of falling 
into it no small disturbance and commotion, and sends 
out wavelets on every side; but soon it mingles with the 
water, and afterwards flows on quietly with its current, 
only giving to it its own peculiar tinge. So has it been 
in a manner with the entrance of Christianity into the 
stream of the world’s history ; the miraculous manifesta- 
tions accompanying its introduction in due time giving 
way to the course of more ordinary law. 

It is not a right mode of expression to speak, as 
Hume and many others do, of the New Testament 
miracles as a ‘violation of the laws of nature, or as a 
means of introducing disorder into the course of the 
world. The very opposite of this is the case. God is 
the God of order, and His miracles take place only in 
the interests of the highest order. If there had been 
nothing in the world but constant and unchangeable 
physical laws, there would of course have been nothing 
in the world but mechanical order, and therefore no 
occasion for miracles. But then the world would have 
been a very poor world, however large. It was the 
entrance upon the scene of a moral being like man, 
a being possessed of free-will, and therefore with the 
power to sin, that changed the whole. As a most 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, 161 


certain fact, man fell into sin and sinful courses, and it is 
this dark fact of sin which is the great disturber of 
order, the grand cause of disorder in the world. And 
just in this deep and ruinous disorder which has been 
caused by sin, do we find the true root and ground of 
miraculous intervention. It was designed to put an end 
to the dire disorder and misery, and restore the divine 
order; and in doing so, the supernatural religion no 
more violates the order of nature than the physician, 
who, by skilful medicine and treatment, arrests the 
progress of the disease, or removes it altogether, and 
restores the suffering patient to perfect health. It was 
sin that introduced the real violation of the laws of 
nature, and it is against it alone that the charge 
of disorder is to be brought. Christianity, the super- 
natural religion, was introduced and exists in the 
interests of divine order. 

The truth just now touched on, namely, that miracles 
are in accordance with the principle of the highest order, 
will appear the more clearly the more carefully we con- 
sider it. There is obviously an ascending gradation in 
nature, of which we may name as outstanding steps, 
matter, chemical force, vegetable life, animal life, 
spiritual life. The Theist naturally believes that in 
this scale the lower exists for the higher; matter for 
chemical force; chemical force for vegetable life; 


vegetable life for animal life ; and all for spiritual life, 
L 


162 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


which is the apex of the pyramid. Surely, then, if the 
spiritual or highest element should by any means 
become the prey of disorder and disease, it cannot be 
but that the lower stages must admit of being used in 
such a way as to conduce to the restoration of order 
and health therein. To say that their common order 
or laws of working must never be interfered with, even 
though the supreme object for which they exist should 
collapse in disorder and disease, surely seems contrary 
to reason. Rather it would seem most reasonable that 
these lower stages should, from the very nature of the 
case, admit of being so used as to contribute to the 
healthful order of the highest. In a great house, all 
the furniture, the servants, and the different arrange- 
ments exist and work for the welfare of its inhabitant 
and lord; and surely we may reasonably expect, that 
when he falls into disease or trouble, all the arrange- 
ments must admit of being changed as far as may be 
obviously necessary to secure his recovery. To say 
that such a change is impossible would be simply 
preposterous. It would be to esteem the means 
more important than the end, the house than its 
inhabitant, the lower order than the higher. The 
Theist regards the world and its laws as made for man, 
and not man for the world and its laws. Accordingly, 
if man should fall into spiritual disease and disorder, 
then the world and its laws may be used by God, even 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 163 


in the way of miracles if necessary, to contribute to the 
restoration of his spiritual health and order. It is the 
soul of the very highest order that the lower laws and 
powers should be used in the interest of order in the 
supreme or spiritual sphere. A so-called miracle, there- 
fore, even though it may appear to cause a momentary 
disorder of a lower kind, may be in strict accordance 
with the highest order. On the other hand, the absence 
of miracles may, in certain cases, be a breach or failure 
in the principle of the highest or spiritual order. 

There are some who look on the miraculous element 
1 the New Testament as of little importance. They 
think they can reject it entirely, and yet hold fast 
by Christianity. We do not need to enter into any 
lengthened discussion, in order to show that this is 
impossible. The miraculous element is the very back- 
bone of the Christian system, and all, or almost all, 
that distinguishes it from other systems is to be found 
in this very element. Christ is Christianity, and His 
incarnation, person, life, resurrection, and ascension are 
all things which are intensely supernatural or mira- 
culous! Accordingly, the man who leaves Albee the 


1 Is it necessary to say anything as to the distinction between the szfer- 
natural and the miraculous? By the supernatural we mean that world of 
mind, and especially the Divine Mind, which exists above mere nature. 
Every direct or immediate manifestation or act of a supernatural being is 
essentially a miracle, and every dzrect or immediate act or manifestation of 
God is a miracle in the narrower sense with which at present we have 


164. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


supernatural out of Christianity must leave out Christ. 
In any case he can believe in Christ only as a mere 
man, who lived and died like other men, whose body 
saw corruption, and whose dust has long since been 
scattered to all the winds that blow. Not only are all 
the supernatural facts gone, but also all the super- 
natural doctrines which were accredited by the facts, 
such as our Lord’s true divinity and atonement, justifica- 
tion by faith, the resurrection, judgment, and immor- 
tality. All are gone, at least to a shadow, and there 
is left little more than the mere morality, with perhaps 
a few of the doctrines of natural religion, and these 
without their grandest proof and authentication. The 
man who renounces all the supernatural in Christianity, 
and who still flatters himself that he is a Christian in 
the New Testament sense, or indeed in any really 
distinctive sense, is only deluding himself. 

It is a common remark in certain quarters that 
Christianity is just like other religions in professing to 
have its origin accompanied with, and authenticated 
by legions of miracles. This statement is made and 
especially to do. We say every direct or immediate act or manifestation ; 
for all nature is an indirect or mediate manifestation, and all its operations 
indirect operations of the supernatural Creator and Upholder. Accord- 
ingly, we would say that the growth of the grain is not a miracle, because 
it is an zvdzrect manifestation of a supernatural power; but that the incarna- 
tion and miracles of Christ are properly miracles, because they are direct 


manifestations of such power. In short, a direct or immediate super- 
natural manifestation or action is a miracle, 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, 165 


reiterated, we have reason to suspect, to throw discredit 
upon the miracles of Christianity, and get them all 
swept away at once, without inquiry, along with the 
mass of fabled prodigies which encircle these other 
religions. But the statement, we are convinced, is 
mainly a mistake. So far as can be proved by the 
evidence of contemporary writers, Christianity is the 
only great religion of the world which came claiming 
from the very first to be authenticated by objective 
miracles; and Christ is the only founder of a great 
historical religion, who came professing to work such 
miracles in attestation of His mission. Of course, no 
one denies that in the lapse of time the origins of these 
other religions referred to became the centres of whole 
nebulz of fabulous marvels; but when we go back to 
the founders themselves, we do not find from con- 
temporary evidence that they laid claim to the working 
of physical miracles. Beginning in the distant east, we 
have Confucianism, the religion of the majority of the 
Chinese; but it does not appear from contemporary 
evidence that Confucius, its founder, ever claimed or 
professed to work miracles. When we come to India, 
the original home of Buddhism, we find the same thing 
true in regard to the founder of that religion. While it 
is the fact that in later ages the Buddha became the 
centre of an exuberant jungle of monstrous prodigies, 
yet it seems totally certain from the best authorities 


166 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


that he made no claim to work miracles, and even dis- 
countenanced the idea. And last, and most conspicuous 
of all, we have the case of Mohammedanism. Here, also, 
we find the usual host of fabulous marvels growing up 
in course of time around its prophet, but it is a well- 
known fact that Mohammed did not claim to work 
physical miracles in attestation of his professed revela- 
tion, and persistently evaded the challenge to do so. As 
he expresses himself in the thirteenth chapter of the 
Koran, he was ‘commissioned to be a preacher only, 
and not a worker of miracles.’ In short, so far as can 
be gathered from anything like contemporary evidence, 
Christianity is the only great religion which claims from 
the very beginning to have been ushered into the world 
authenticated by physical miracles, and Christ is the 
only founder of a great religion who came professing 
to work miracles in attestation of His commission. 
Accordingly the assertion that Christianity is just like 
other religions in having its origin accompanied with 
crowds of miracles, is false, and quite insufficient to 
warrant the fair inquirer in sweeping away the Christian 
miracles without examination into the general limbo of 
discredited prodigies and myths. Rather, the striking 
difference between Christianity and the other religions 


1 This has been a staple argument against Mohammed from the earliest 
days of Mohammedanism. See, for example, the interesting AZology of Al 
Kindy, composed at the Court of Al Mamiin, Caliph of Bagdad, about 
A.D. 830, pp. 55 ff. (2nd edition, by Sir William Muir). 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 167 


in this respect challenges special attention, and almost 
constitutes an argument in its favour. 

There are not a few who see that the miraculous is 
evidently an essential element in Christianity, but 
find herein their greatest obstacle to its reception. 
Theodore Parker says, ‘Miracles hang like a millstone 
about the neck of many a pious man, who can believe 
in religion, but not in the transformation of water into 
wine, or the resurrection of a body.! ‘If miracles, 
said Baden Powell, ‘were, in the estimation of a former 
age, among the chief supports of Christianity, they are 
at present among the main difficulties and hindrances 
to its acceptance. * They are so, no doubt, to those 
who are determined not to believe in the supernatural 
or any special action of the supernatural, and will have 
no religion but that of mere nature. But, as we have 
seen, the supernatural element is just the very essence 
and soul, the glory and power of Christianity ; and to 
desire a Christianity without this element is to desire 
fire without the power to burn, matter without eravita- 
tion, electricity without the power of giving a shock, a 
mind without free-will. 

Revelation implies the supernatural, and it can 
scarcely be denied that a revelation is desirable and 
not unreasonably to be expected. Ina world in which 


1 Discourse on Matters pertaining to Religion, p. 186 (Triibner). 
2 Essays and Reviews, p. 168 (12th edition). 


168 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


immortal men are sunk in sin, and liable to all the 
miseries which accompany it here, and the woes which 
may possibly accompany it hereafter; in which earnest 
souls in all ages have yearned, and wrestled, and peered 
into the thick and silent darkness with the deepest 
anguish, crying in agony for light ; in a world in which 
death reigns, and men, as they feel its terrible shadow 
beginning to darken over them, are filled with an awful 
anxiety to know whether there be a hereafter, a heaven 
or a hell, or both ; in a world where men are utterly at 
sea as to whether or not there is salvation for the lost, 
and if so, how it is to be obtained, guess warring against 
guess, speculation against speculation, system against 
system, surely no one can deny that a reasonably 
certain revelation is a thing most devoutly to be 
desired. To those who believe in a personal God it 
must seem to be a thing not impossible. To those 
who have any idea of God as a being possessed in 
some degree of a father’s goodness and love, it must 
appear to be a thing not utterly unlikely, but rather 
most likely, that He should reveal to His children that 
truth which they so deeply need, for which they so 
earnestly cry, and which it is of paramount importance 
for them to know, but which, as all history proves, they 
cannot possibly discover for themselves with any reason- 
able degree of certainty. 

But, when we think of such a revelation, the question 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 169 


at once arises, How can it be proved to be really a 
revelation from heaven? How can the messenger be 
sufficiently accredited as an authoritative commissioner 
from God? The distinct answer is, that it must be 
mainly by miracles. No doubt, the moral character of 
the messenger must be of the right kind; but this of 
itself is no sufficient authentication; for there have been 
multitudes of the best of men who have not been 
commissioned from heaven to reveal truth beyond the 
reach of human reason. Therefore, we say, the special 
credentials of the divine messenger must be miracles, 
There is the best reason to believe that the human 
mind, when unsophisticated and unbiassed, naturally 
and instinctively regards miracles as the appropriate 
credentials of an authoritative commissioner from 
heaven. Men as a rule have held this view in every 
age, and, notwithstanding all the acute reasoning of 
philosophers, nothing will ever drive this conviction 
out of the general mind of man. For even instinctive 
logic and practical common sense perceive at a glance, 
that nothing can prove a supernatural commission but 
supernatural credentials. Nothing but distinct mani- 
festations of mathematical or musical power could ever 
prove to us, that a person who is a complete stranger 
is a distinguished mathematician or musician, and so 
nothing but supernatural credentials, or miracles, can 
possibly prove a messenger to have a supernatural 


170 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


commission. Mere natural credentials can no more 
prove a professed teacher of truth to be supernatu- 
rally commissioned, than the ability to speak or write 
English can prove the stranger referred to above to 
be a great mathematician or musician. The proof 
must naturally correspond with the thing to be proved, 
and positively imply it. Clearly, therefore, from the 
nature of the case, nothing but a supernatural action 
can ever prove a supernatural commission, nothing but 
miracles can immediately and satisfactorily authenticate 
a man to be an authoritative messenger from God. 
Neither the excellence of the morality alone, nor the 
apparently high moral character of the teacher, nor both 
combined, can be sufficient for this purpose; for all 
these may be within the reach of mere human nature. 
To authenticate in a sufficient way a teacher of super- 
natural truth, that is, truth beyond the reach of mere 
reason, miracles are necessary; at least they are the 
most direct and natural proof. Hence, while Mozley 
says that ‘a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a 
supernatural doctrine ;’ and Mansel, that ‘a superhuman 
authority needs to be substantiated by superhuman 
evidence;’ even J. S. Mill frankly affirms that ‘a 
revelation cannot be proved divine unless by external 
evidence, that is, by the exhibition of supernatural facts.’ 
To sum up with the expression of Butler, ‘Revelation 
is miraculous, and miracles are the proof of it.’ 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 17! 


That the Lord Jesus Himself meant His miracles to 
be credentials of His divine commission, can scarcely be 
denied or even doubted. In various texts He expresses 
most explicitly what their purpose was, and what their 
effect should be. ‘I have greater witness than that of 
John, He says; ‘for the works which the Father hath 
given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear 
witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me’ (John 
v. 36). And again He says, ‘The works that I do in 
My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me’ (John 
x. 25). When the disciples of John the Baptist came 
to Him to ascertain whether He was the true Messiah 
or not, He replied, ‘Go your way, and tell John what 
things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind 
receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised’ (Luke 
vii. 22). To the cavilling Jews He answered, ‘ That ye 
may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to 
forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) 
Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house’ (Matt. 
ix. 6, 7). Accordingly we also find that the Jews were 
declared to be highly culpable for rejecting the evidence 
afforded by His miracles: ‘If I had not done among 
them the works which none other man did, they had 
not had sin’ (John xv. 24); and again, * Woe unto thee, 
Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty 
works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre 


172 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack- 
cloth and ashes’ (Matt. xi. 21 ff), All this is extremely 
plain, and means beyond doubt that our Lord meant 
His miracles to be credentials of His heavenly mission. 
It has been occasionally objected by a certain class 
of thinkers from the time of Spinoza downwards, that 
miracles are impossible. But surely, if we reflect, we 
may well ask, What mortal man can venture to make 
such a sweeping assertion with modesty and reasonable- 
ness? Only the man who absolutely knows that there 
is no personal God: only the man who is an absolute 
atheist, materialist, or pantheist : for obviously, if there 
be a God at all, it must be rash and unwarrantable in 
any mere man to assert that a miracle is an impossi- 
bility. The position assumed in this book is that of 
Theism, and as Theists we believe that God has 
interfered in nature from time to time to make new 
beginnings in it, and each of these is substantially a 
miracle. As geology rolls back the volume of the 
earth’s history before our eyes, we come at last to a time 
when man most certainly did not exist upon the earth. 
Here man is, but there man is not, and between these 
two leaves he sprang into being. But his coming into 
being, whether by creation or development, was a new 
beginning, and essentially a supernatural action on the 
part of God. And if God could perform a supernatural 
action then, we cannot suppose that He, who is from 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 173 


everlasting to everlasting, is unable by a direct act of 
His will to make a new beginning in nature, or perform 
a supernatural action now. All nature is God’s nature ; 
its matter, forces, and laws are God’s matter, forces, and 
laws, and surely it must be unwarrantable to suppose 
that they are not His obedient servants, and that He 
cannot use them for supernatural purposes or to bring 
about supernatural events. It may be the case that we 
cannot tell how God’s will directly works on nature so 
as to accomplish the miracle, any more than we can tell 
how our own will raises our hand to perform the human 
miracle of holding up the stone that is in it. But in 
spite of all the mystery, we know that our will does 
raise our hand. And the laws and forces of nature are 
but the hands of God, and may be infinitely more 
obedient to His will than the human hand to the human 
will. To say that God created nature and its laws, but 
that He cannot now use or even modify them, looks 
very much like an absurdity, if not a contradiction; for 
surely it is a far less thing to use, or even modify those 
laws and forces, than to create them at first. In short, 
we must remember that God has made nature not to be 
His master, but His servant. 

But does not modern physical science prove that 
miracles must be impossible? We confidently answer 
that it has never proved and never can prove any such 
thing. As we have seen in a previous study, it cannot 


174. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


even reach God, for He is quite beyond its sphere ; and 
much more must it lie beyond its sphere to affirm that 
God cannot perform a miracle. It can no more prove 
that it is impossible for God to use the laws of nature to 
bring about a supernatural event, than it can prove that 
it is impossible for man to use the laws of nature to 
make a stone rise in the air. What physical science 
shows is that the forces and laws of nature, as a rule, are 
constant after they are brought into existence, not that 
they must be constant by a metaphysical necessity in 
spite of the will of God. But this so-called uniformity 
of nature does not exclude supernatural action on the 
part of man, and much less does it exclude it on the part 
of God. If man, in spite of this uniformity, is able not 
merely to act on nature from without, but even to use 
its laws and forces as a means to his end, surely this 
must be true much more of God. What physical science 
has shown is, that the miracles of Jesus are absolutely 
beyond the power of nature or of man, and must there- 
fore be miracles in the highest sense; but it has not 
proved, and it cannot prove in the least, that miracles 
are impossible. 

It has been already implied that man can perform 
that which is essentially a miracle. And this is the 
certain truth. We find in nature a system in which 
constant laws rule, which act of necessity, and only on 
their own lines, But in man we find a mind and the 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 175 


elements of intelligence and free-will. Man, in virtue 
of this mind, can act upon the forces of nature from 
without, and knowing their fixed laws can use them 
to accomplish new results and introduce new beginnings 
into the course of nature, which mere nature itself never 
could introduce. Every intelligent volition which takes 
effect in outward action is such a new beginning, intro- 
ducing something quite new into the course of nature, 
and therefore it contains within it the essence of a 
miracle. In other words, when we form an intelligent 
plan, and use our free-will to set action going to carry 
it out into realization, we do a thing which the forces 
of nature, working according to their constant laws, 
never could have done, and which is therefore 
essentially supernatural. We really bring a super- 
natural act into being, and in doing so, we may appear 
even to ‘violate’ some of the laws of nature. But 
after all we are only using the laws of nature as they 
were meant to be used, as the trusty servants and 
instruments of intelligent free-will. Every law of 
nature still continues to act in its own way, and 
where we appear to ‘violate’ these laws, it is only by 
counteracting them by other laws of nature or by the 
laws of mind. | 
Perhaps it may be well to make this clear by an 
example or two, When we hold up a stone in the 
hand, it is plain that we are counteracting, ‘violating’ 


176 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


let us even say, the law of gravitation. But it is plain 
that we are counteracting the law of gravitation only 
by the higher laws of mind making use of the physical 
power of the arm for this very purpose. Yet even in 
this simple act we have all the different and all the 
difficult elements of the miraculous, an intelligent will 
producing a totally new effect in nature which nature 
itself never could produce. Or again, let us take the 
case of the steam-engine. In the production of such 
an object we have all the essential difficulties of the 
miracle. We have an entirely new thing produced by an 
intelligent will acting in and upon nature, a thing which 
mere nature never could have produced itself. Yet it 
is all produced by mind thinking out the thought, put- 
ting forth the will, and using the forces and laws of 
nature, so as to make them co-operate to realize the 
intelligent purpose. The mind seizes and utilizes the 
law of gravitation, the laws of the air, of iron, of motion, 
of fire, of water, of steam, and the like, unites them all 
and plays them off against each other, and so produces 
the useful steam-engine. 

In all such cases as the above, we have first the 
intelligent plan in the mind, then the volition to carry 
it out, the setting free of new force, or transmutation 
of dormant energy by the will, in order to move the 
arm, perform the act, or execute the work, and the 
skilful use of the laws of nature so as to carry out our 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. Iv 7 


purpose. The step here which is the central mystery 
where the supernatural essentially lies concealed, is the 
intelligent action of the will, the setting free of new 
power which would have otherwise remained only 
dormant potential energy, and the passage over of that 
action and power into realization as a new existence 
in the world of sense. It is quite true that this step is 
enveloped in mystery; we cannot give a logical analysis 
or statement of it in detail; but the fact is as certain 
as any fact of consciousness can be. Now, if the finite 
mind of man can form such new and intelligent plans, 
can by the action of the will originate new beginnings, 
can set free new power or transmute and direct potential 
energy, and can use the forces and laws of the physical 
world so as to accomplish its supernatural ends, surely 
the infinite mind of God may do the same, and that 
in an immeasurably higher degree. He who is the 
supreme intelligence can form the new purpose; He 
who is the fountain of all will can put forth the new 
volition; He to whose will all power and potential 
energy lying in the unseen are entirely subject, can, 
by an act of His will, at once set free that energy in 
actual form so as to make it spring up in the seen in 
a new existence ; He to whom all nature is under direct 
and complete control, even more than the arm is under 
the control of our will, can, by His will, use the powers 


and laws of nature as His pliant instruments, whether 
M 


178 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


in the way of action or counteraction; so as to accom- 
plish the end which He wills.’ 3 

We cannot, of course, in the least understand, far less 
exactly analyse and state, how God breaks through 
nature, and works in and by the forces of nature and 
their laws, so as to produce a new beginning or event. 
We know almost nothing as to how our own mind 
works in and through means of the brain. We know 
absolutely nothing as to how the will sets free nerve 
force, or whatever it may be, to command and move the 
muscles. We know next to nothing about the manner 
in which it works in and by the muscles to raise the 
arm, as to how it changes in the act of volition mere 
potential into actual energy. We are almost totally 
ignorant as to how mind works in, and on, and through 
means of matter, although we know the fact for certain. 
‘The problem of the connection of the soul and body,’ 
says Professor Tyndall, ‘is as unsearchable in its modern 
form as it was in the pre-scientific ages.’ In like manner, 
we can still less expect to know and analyse the mode 
in which the mind of God may act in nature to produce 
a new beginning or a new event. It may be that, in 
some instances at least, He uses only natural laws to 
produce the miracle. Or it may be, as Lotze holds, 
that the natural laws remain unaltered, but that God 
so modifies the essential condition of the existing forces 

1 See Appendix, Note IX. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, 179 


and elements of matter directly bearing on the special 
case, that they now work out the miracle according to 
the universal laws of nature.’ Or, it may be, as the 
authors of the Unseen Universe hold, that God accom- 
plishes the miracle by the direct transference of new 
energy through an act of the divine will from the 
invisible into the visible universe, by ‘the transmutation 
of energy from the one universe into the other.! Shall 
we say that just as the touch of the telegraph clerk sets 
free the electricity in the battery, so as to make it 
flow along the wire and produce the signal at the 
other end, or just as the will sets free the potential 
nerve force to flow into the arm to move it; so God 
by His divine volition injects a new influx of power, or 
sets it free to flow from the invisible into the visible 
sphere, leading men to say, ‘Here is the finger of God, 
a flash of the will that can’? But perhaps, after all, it 
is more modest and safe to say that we cannot tell how 
the end is accomplished in the case of God any more 
than in the case of man. The New Testament never pre- 
sumes to explain to us howa miracle is wrought. ‘Such 
knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high, we cannot 
attain unto it” What we know for certain is, that God 
has produced such new beginnings and events, as the 
records of creation both in Scripture and in the structure 
of the earth declare, and as the records of Christianity 


1 See Appendix, Note X. 


180 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


both in the New Testament and the continuously exist- 
ing Church no less explicitly proclaim. 

But though we may not be warranted in declaring 
miracles impossible, nay, even though we expressly 
admit them to be possible, it is further objected that 
they cannot possibly be proved. This is the position 
taken up by Hume in his famous argument. No better 
statement of the argument can be given than his own. 
‘A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as 
a firm and unalterable experience has established these 
laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature 
of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience 
can possibly be imagined.’ That is, the miracles 
of the New Testament are proved by testimony, but 
‘experience’ tells us ‘that testimony sometimes deceives 
us, whereas it tells us that the laws of nature are 
absolutely ‘uniform.’ When testimony, therefore, comes 
into collision with the ‘uniformity of nature, the former 
must go to the wall. But in the miracle this is what takes 
place: and therefore we must reject the evidence of 
testimony for the miracle, as being more than counter- 
balanced by the ‘uniformity of nature.” In other words, 
miracles cannot be proved, and are utterly incredible. 

Now, that Hume’s argument is very acute is no doubt 
the case. But it is more of a logical puzzle than any- 
thing else. At any rate it is tolerably certain that the 


1 Essay on Miracles, Part i. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 181 


instinctive common sense of men in general regards it 
more in the light of a puzzle than of a solid argument. 
It is a puzzle of somewhat the same kind as those who 
maintain the freedom of the will regard the argument 
of Edwards against that doctrine to be. While few can 
logically unravel or refute it, just as few believe it; for 
though they cannot solve the puzzle by logic, they 
nevertheless directly solve it by consciousness. Itisa 
puzzle somewhat like the argumentation employed by 
Hume himself, and by the idealists, against our cer- 
tainty in regard to the reality of the external world. 
It is extremely subtle, and difficult to refute logically ; 
nevertheless but few believe in it; for though they may 
not be able to refute it by logic, they do so readily by 
instinct and common sense. In like manner men in 
general feel that though Hume’s argument against 
miracles may be very subtle, and difficult to refute 
logically, it is quite as easily and directly refuted by 
consciousness and common sense as either of the 
preceding. Men have an instinctive perception and 
conviction that the argument is fallacious. They have 
an instinctive and invincible conviction that there is 
such a thing as sufficient evidence of the senses and of 
testimony for the unquestionable certainty of outward 
objects and events. Indeed such a conviction is one 
of the primary facts of our nature, and in the healthy 
and unbiassed mind will always prove itself victorious 


182 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


against any logical puzzles, or subtle long-drawn argu- 
ments from the ‘uniformity’ of the laws of nature. 
Accordingly when that sufficient evidence exists, men 
feel constrained to accord their belief, even to miracles, 
as is shown by the fact that they have in all ages almost 
universally believed more or less in miracles. Instead 
of regarding them as incredible and unprovable, they 
have no difficulty in certain circumstances in regarding 
them both as credible and proved. To use Hume’s 
own words employed elsewhere: ‘We need not fear 
that this philosophy will ever undermine the reasonings 
of common life. Nature will always maintain her rights, 
and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning 
whatsoever.’ * | 

In any case, the argument or puzzle notwithstanding, 
we know that things which are flagrant violations of the 
‘uniformity of nature’ may be as certain as any histori- 
cal fact in the universe, and believed to be as certain. 
Perhaps we shall see this most vividly by means of a 
simple illustration. It is quite certain that it is contrary 
to all ‘experience’ in Hume’s sense of the word, that 
man should come into existence in any other way than 
by ordinary generation. All ‘experience’ declares that 
this is the only way: and therefore we should believe 
that man must have existed from all eternity by ordi- 
nary descent. But it is perfectly certain that there was 


1 Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Part i. sect. v. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 183 


a time when man did not exist upon the earth. There 
must therefore have been a first man. And how did he 
come into existence? It matters not for our present 
purpose whether he was evolved or created; he clearly 
did not come into existence by ordinary human birth. 
But whether he sprang into existence by evolution 
or immediate creation, either is alike contrary to all 
‘experience. The evolution or creation of a man has 
never been seen in all the ages of history, and being 
contrary to all experience, it ought to be unprovable 
and incredible. Man therefore must certainly have 
existed from eternity ; at least we ought to believe this, 
if we are to trust Hume’s argument. But in spite of his 
argument, we know that man did not exist from all 
eternity, that he did at some past time or other come 
into existence in a way entirely contrary to universal 
human ‘experience. So in like manner, in spite of 
Hume’s argument or puzzle, miracles, though contrary 
to ‘universal experience, may have taken place, and we 
may have reasonable assurance of the fact. 

But after all, from the Christian point of view, the 
Christian miracles, and those of Christ in particular, 
are not ‘contrary to experience’ in Hume’s sense of 
the expression, and therefore his argument does not 
apply. We are not to think of the miracles as sporadic, 
purposeless, accidental occurrences. Like everything 
else in the universe of the reasonable God, they can 


184 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


never take place without a sufficient reason. Accord- 
ingly to show that miracles do not: take place when 
there is no sufficient reason for them, proves nothing 
whatsoever against the credibility of the Christian 
miracles. We must remember that they stand in living 
and organic connection with the incarnation of Christ, 
and His mission as the Divine Saviour and the Founder 
of the ultimate world-religion. They are the proper 
credentials of His heavenly commission, and a vital 
part of the new religion. The case of the Christian 
miracles is therefore entirely unique. It stands utterly 
alone in the history of human ‘experience.’ We have 
no ‘experience’ whatsoever in regard to the introduction 
of such a religion and the advent of such a Person into 
our world. We have no more ‘experience’ in regard 
to such a thing than we have in regard to the creation 
of the world. As there is only one case of each in the 
past, we cannot be said to have any experience in 
regard either to the one or the other. Our ‘experience’ 
cannot say what is likely or is not likely to be the mode 
of procedure at the creation of a world, for we have 
never had any experience in regard to the matter. 
Accordingly, to say that it was accompanied with this 
or that class of phenomena cannot be said to be ‘con- 
trary to experience.’ In the same way our ‘experience’ 
can prove nothing about the improbability of miracles 
as phenomena accompanying the origin of Christianity 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 185 


and the advent of Christ, for we have no ‘experience’ 
whatsoever in regard to the introduction of such a 
religion. In other words, our ‘experience,’ in Hume's 
sense, has really nothing to say on the matter, nothing 
at any rate which can prove miracles in such a con- 
juncture incredible. 

In any case, this so-called argument against miracles 
from ‘experience’ may be checkmated in another way. 
Let it be granted for the moment that miracles in the 
general sense are ‘contrary to experience ;’ it is also 
‘contrary to experience, that evidence such as we have 
for the Christian miracles should be false. A jury has 
no hesitation in giving a fatal verdict of guilty against 
a murderer on the evidence of two honourable and 
trustworthy eye-witnesses of his crime, so certain is 
our confidence in proper human testimony. But here 
we have the best testimony converging upon the 
Christian miracles. The witnesses are beyond all doubt 
men of the highest moral character, not to speak of 
our Lord, who plainly claimed the power of working 
miracles, and speaks as if He actually wrought them. 
No one can believe the apostles and their fellow-disciples 
to be wilful deceivers. All selfish interests must have 
disposed them to abjure and forsake Christ, if He had 
been an impostor; but, on the contrary, they forsook 
all for Him. For His sake they exposed themselves 
to shame and scorn, to worldly loss and ostracism, to 


4 


186 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


unremitting persecution and death. They were not 
merely cross-examined, they were examined by suffer- 
ing and torture; and yet they held fast to their 
testimony and sealed it with their blood. They did not 
hear of the miracles at second hand ; they saw them 
with their own eyes, heard them with their own ears, 
felt them with their own hands, so that they could not 
possibly be mistaken. The witnesses were not merely 
two or three, but numerous ; not merely twelve, or even 
a hundred and twenty, but hundreds. They were not 
only numerous, but in spite of all their persecutions no 
one ever came forward and divulged the secret impos- 
ture, or showed up the falsity of the juggle. Not even 
Judas the traitor, not even the hostile Jews attempted 
such a thing, for it is notorious that they admitted our 
Lord’s miracles to be really such, however they might 
seek to evade the proper inference. These miracles 
were wrought not in darkness, but in open day; not 
in private, but in public; not merely among friends, but 
before the most determined enemies; not with any 
previous preparation, but as the event presented itself, 
so that any collusion was impossible. They were, 
as we have already seen, the naturally-to-be-expected 
concomitants and credentials accompanying the intro- 
duction of a divine religion. They were followed by 
the spread of the new religion in the midst of enemies, 
in the very places where they are said to have been 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, 187 


wrought, and when there was no worldly inducement 
to believe except shame and loss, persecution and a 
martyrs death. They were followed by the rise of the 
Christian Church, which has had an unbroken continuity 
of existence down to the present day. This is a brief 
but imperfect summary of the evidence for the Christian 
miracles. It is evidence of such a nature that it is 
contrary to all ‘experience’ that it should be false. 
There never has been a single case in which such evi- 
dence has been found to be false in the whole history 
of man. Accordingly, if a miracle be ‘contrary to ex- 
perience,’ it is no less contrary to all experience that 
such evidence, or anything approaching to it, should be 
utterly false.’ 

But after all, what has ‘experience’ to say, as a wit- 
ness, against the miracles of Jesus? Directly, it can say 
nothing positive. At the very utmost, it can only say 
that it cannot bear witness in their behalf. It can say 
little more than this: I was not present to see, and 
therefore I am not a proper witness and ought to be 
out of the witness-box. The matter is one beyond my 
competency, and not having been present at the time, 
I can bear no valid testimony against those miracles, if 
I can bear none in their favour. But the testimony pre- 
sented in the New Testament, and of which a summary 


1 See this well discussed by Chalmers, Zvidences of Christianity, Book 
i. chap. iii, sect. iv. 


188 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


has just been given, is positive testimony. In other 
words, we have the testimony of the most trustworthy 
and thoroughly tested witnesses, all on the same side, 
backed up by varied and important circumstantial evi- 
dence, and that must decide the verdict. In the case of 
a trial for murder, it would avail the murderer but little 
if he should offer to produce as witnesses a hundred, or a 
hundred million men, who were ready to swear that they 
had not seen him commit the murder. The question 
would immediately be raised, Were they actually present, 
so as to be able to see what was going on at the time 
and place at which the murder was committed? If they 
were not present, their testimony would go for nothing, 
they would properly speaking have no testimony at all 
to give; and if two trustworthy witnesses swore that 
they positively were present and saw the murder, the 
prisoner would be unhesitatingly condemned. In some- 
what the same manner, the millions represented by 
Hume’s general ‘experience’ were not present on the 
unique occasion, so as to be able to see whether or not 
the miracles of Jesus were actually wrought. They are, 
therefore, not properly witnesses in the case, and are out 
of court; their testimony, if it does not exactly go for 
nothing, is at the best only indirect ; while the direct 
and positive testimony that remains is substantially 
untouched, and therefore the verdict of the jury must 
be in favour of the reality of the Christian miracles. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 189 


But it may be objected, After all, does any intelligent 
man nowadays really believe in the Christian miracles ? 
Does not every man totally reject the idea of miracles 
in practical life? When we hear that some professed 
miracle has taken place, as for example the miracles 
at Lourdes, or others of the Romish Church, does not 
every intelligent man, whether a Christian or not, at 
once reject them without examination as absurd? 
Do we not set them down as mere delusion and im- 
posture, and does not this show that every man in 
his heart of hearts really disbelieves in miracles? It 
does no such thing. If we take even the unwarrantable 
case of the man who positively disbelieves that any 
miracles can, or do, or will take place in these later 
Christian ages, we may easily see that such a position 
is quite consistent with a firm belief in the gospel 
miracles. No one believes in instances occurring at 
the present day in which men are directly created by 
God, and thus come into the world in the same way 
as Adam did; but very clearly that position is in no 
way inconsistent with the belief of man’s original 
creation. No one believes in cases of man_ being 
developed out of the ape in the present age, and yet 
that may be quite consistent, it is held, with a belief 
in development in the past. The creationist and the 
evolutionist alike believe in the unique origin of man 
according to their respective theories; but after the 


I90 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


beginning was made and man inserted in the course 
of nature, they may both hold that he was left to the 
reign of ordinary natural law. So in like manner, 
the Christian may consistently believe that Chris- 
tianity was miraculously introduced at first, and 
inserted into the course of the world’s life, but that 
afterwards it was left to the mere ordinary laws of 
history, without the constant intervention of miracles. 
What was necessary both for man and Christianity 
in order to bring them into existence, is by no means 
necessarily required for their continuance. After the 
Founder of Christianity has duly authenticated His 
mission and work by miracles, it is possible that they 
may be safely withdrawn. When a foreign ambassador 
arrives in our country, he must at the beginning of his 
residence show his credentials, in order to authenticate 
himself: but when once his position has been acknow- 
ledged, and still more when he has become in a manner 
naturalized in the country, he no longer flaunts his 
credentials in the eyes of men, or ‘wears them on his 
sleeve for daws to peck at.’ 

We must, of course, be careful to distinguish what is 
the only kind of evidence which we can naturally and 
reasonably expect for the New Testament miracles, 
We cannot expect the evidence of universal, or even 
general, experience from age to age. That is precluded 
to a large extent by the very idea of a miracle, which 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. IOI 


is just this, that it is something outside of the course of 
positive general experience. And just as plainly we 
cannot have the evidence of direct intuition, such 
evidence as we have for a mathematical axiom, or a 
first principle in morals. The miracles of the New 
Testament are to us events of past history, and accord- 
ingly as such they can be known as true not by general 
experience or by intuition, but only by historical testi- 
mony. This follows from the very nature of the case. 
A man may no doubt say that he will not accept 
historical testimony as sufficient, even along with the 
moral and circumstantial evidence by which it is 
supported ; but if so, there is no help for him. He 
rejects the only evidence of which the case admits, and 
the matter is at an end so far as he is concerned. If 
a man will not accept mathematical evidence for a 
mathematical truth, or experimental evidence for a 
physical truth, he is doomed to remain in unbelief; and 
in like manner, if a man will not accept historical evi- 
dence, even when well supported all round, for a past 
historical fact, he must be content to remain in unbelief. 
He rejects at the very threshold the only kind of 
evidence of which the case admits, and which can be 
had, and thus he practically shuts himself out from the 
possibility of conviction. 

The conditions have indeed been. sometimes laid 
down, which alone would be sufficient to demonstrate 


192 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the reality of a miracle. Renan has done this more 
than once.’ According to him, in order to make the 
result completely satisfactory, Jesus in raising a dead 
man to life, for example, should have submitted to some 
such conditions as the following. A committee of 
distinguished physiologists and physicists should have 
been formed. They should have selected the corpse, 
and tested scientifically that it was really dead. They 
should have fixed on the hall where the experiment was 
to be made, and if it could only have been in Paris so 
much the better. They should, in short, have taken all 
the necessary scientific precautions; and then, in the 
face of day and before an excited assembly—but we 
leave the rest of the picture to the reader's imagination. 
And even the performance of the miracle once and 
again after this fashion would not have been sufficient. 
It must have been repeated in different circumstances, 
and on different dead bodies. Such is a sketch of the 
necessary conditions. But who does not instinctively 
feel that such a. method partakes far too much of the 
mere theatrical, and is quite foreign to the spirit of 
Jesus, to the natural way in which His miracles always 
sprang up out of the actual life and history, and to the 
real gospel meaning of the miracles, as object lessons 
teaching positive truth? And further, we may safely 
say that such a method would never have satisfied even 


1 Vie de Jésus, p. 51, 12th edition; Les Apédtres, p. 44. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, 193 


Renan himself. For he doubtless would have said, as 
he does say, that miracles are not performed nowadays ; 
no man ever sees or ever saw a miracle in our age; 
and therefore they cannot have taken place then. The 
committee who conducted the experiments must either 
have been deceived themselves, or must have united 
with Jesus in His deception. In any case, it is much 
more than likely that deception took place somewhere ; 
for are not miracles contrary to all experience? 

In a previous study we have discussed the authen- 
ticity of the leading books of the New Testament, and 
of course we now accept them as veracious and trust- 
worthy witnesses in behalf of the Christian miracles, 
But it may strengthen their testimony, especially in 
view of the consideration that there are some who think 
they can reject the miracles and yet accept our Lord’s 
teaching, if we emphasize the fact that the New Testa- 
ment miracles are often closely interwoven with the 
ordinary narrative, the dialogue, and the teaching. So 
closely are they interwoven at times, that they cannot 
be separated without the utmost arbitrariness and vio- 
lence, without producing confusion, and making much 
of the teaching unintelligible. We sce this very clearly 
in regard to the miracle of feeding the five thousand 
recorded in the sixth chapter of John, when viewed in 
connection with the discourse which follows concerning 


the bread of life. We see it again illustrated in the 
N 


194 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


narrative of the raising of Lazarus (John xi.); for here 
the conversation is closely connected with the miracle, 
and the miracle in its turn becomes the means of stirring 
up further hostility on the part of the Jews. We see 
the same thing in the account of Paul’s conversion (Acts 
ix.), in which the natural incidents, the miracles, the 
dialogue, and the resultant new life fit into each other 
and are inseparably interwoven. Accordingly nothing 
can be more capricious or arbritary than the way. in 
which such critics as Renan, for example, are compelled 
by their foregone denial of the supernatural to deal with 
such narratives ; for while they accept substantially the 
natural facts, the dialogue, and the teaching, they utterly 
reject the miraculous element, though the evidence for 
it is exactly the same as for the elements which they 
accept. ‘The miracles, as Godet remarks, ‘are not, as 
people often believe, a mere embroidery upon the web of 
the gospel history ; they form part of the very web itself.’ 
And hence, in the words of Dr. M‘Cosh, ‘it is impossible 
to separate between the ordinary acts and discourses of 
our Lord on the one hand, and His miracles on the’ 
other. They are woven through and through each other 
as the weft and woof. They could be separated only 
by tearing the garment to pieces.”* This fact is im- 


1 This is clearly perceived and fully acknowledged even by Strauss. 
He says: ‘If the Gospels are really and truly historical, it is impossible to 
exclude miracles from the life of Jesus ;’ and he goes on characteristically 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 195 


portant and instructive, and greatly strengthens the 
testimony of the New Testament books to the miracles. 

But while miracles are so inseparably interwoven with 
the narrative and teaching, it may still further confirm 
their credibility when we reflect that they exactly fit 
into the nature and personality of Jesus. In other 
words, there is a perfect congruity or consistency 
between them and Him.’ He is represented as alto- 
gether a supernatural Person; and this He Himself 
explicitly claims to be. In like manner, true to all 
this, He acts as a supernatural Person. But to act like 
such a Person is to do supernatural things, that is, to 
work miracles. In other words, it is as natural for Him 
to perform miracles in the higher sense, as it is for 
man to perform intelligent, voluntary actions, which are 
miracles in the lower sense. Richter somewhere remarks 
that ‘miracles on earth are nature in heaven.’ This 
saying has its truth ; and, applied to Jesus, it means that 
what appear the highest miracles to us were nature to 
Him. We feel that there is a consistency in it that 
Jesus should perform miracles, as He was Himself the 
grand miracle. We even find it difficult to conceive 
that He who was incarnate God should have gone 
through life without miraculous manifestations, just as 


to remark: ‘If, on the other hand, miracles are incompatible with history, 
then the Gospels are not really historical records.’—Mew Life of Jesus, 
WO, 1. p. 19. 

1See Appendix, Note XI. 


196 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


we find it difficult to think of a man going through life 
without the usual manifestations of humanity. It is a 
fundamental law that everything should act according 
to its own nature, and for Christ to act according to 
His true nature is to perform supernatural actions in 
the highest sense. ‘Being a miracle Himself, it would 
be the greatest of all miracles, if He did not work 
miracles.’ * 

Once more, it is worthy of remark that the miracles 
of Jesus were not fantastic, puerile, meaningless mon- 
strosities, like the miracles of the apocryphal Gospels 
and of later Mohammedanism. On the contrary, they 
were the natural expression of what was in Jesus, of 
what His grand purpose was. They were ‘signs,’ full 
of significance. They served not only as credentials to 
authenticate the Messenger and His teaching, but they 
were also the actual means of expressing and teaching 
the truth. They extend over all the realms of nature, 
the wind and the sea, the vegetable and the animal 
kingdoms, the bodies and the minds of men, the world 
of death and the world of evil spirits: and they prove 
thereby that Christ is truly Lord of all. They are all 
miracles of healing, of mercy and benevolence, and 
thereby they proclaim that His mission was one of 
mercy and healing, that He is the life and the light of 
men, the bread of life, the resurrection and the life. We 


1 See Appendix, Note XII. 


THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 197 


may read the gospel in His miracles as well as in His 
doctrinal teaching and His parables, and we find that it 
is the self-same gospel. In other words, the miracles 
harmonize not merely with the person but also with 
the mission and teaching of Jesus, and this consistency 
becomes another powerful consideration establishing 
their reality. 

We close the present study with a simple statement 
of what the miraculous element in Christianity, once 
reasonably established, distinctly implies. When taken | 
along with the moral character of Jesus, it demonstrates 
His divine commission and the full authority of His 
teaching. By doing so, it proves in the only way in 
which they can be proved the supernatural doctrines 
which He proclaimed. More especially it proves the 
doctrines of His divinity and propitiation, salvation by 
grace through faith, the resurrection, the final judgment 
and immortality—doctrines which are clearly beyond 
the reach of mere reason to ascertain with practical 
certainty, and which could only have been made known 
by a supernatural revelation. The miraculous element 
carries with it, in short, all those high doctrines which 
make our religion full of the unsearchable riches of 
Christ and the treasures of the Godhead, and without 
which it would have been poor and feeble indeed, and 
would long since have vanished as a living power from 
the earth. It proves that the supernatural is a great 


198 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


reality, the reality of all realities, in which the soul of 
the spiritual man lives and breathes as in an unseen, 
ethereal air, interpenetrated by its subtle presence 
through and through. It shows us that the little circle 
of our life on earth is surrounded on its utmost horizon 
by a supernatural zone, from which there shoots up ‘a 
glorious rose of dawn,’ giving us the good hope through 
grace, that when our ‘life’s star’ sets in the west, it only 
sets to rise beyond the ridge of the everlasting hills in 
that heavenly sphere where all is life and day. 


VIII. 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES IN 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


OuR object in the following study is to discuss the 
question whether we have in the New Testament any 
indisputably direct personal testimony to miracles. Do 
any of the writers, speaking undeniably in their own 
name, explicitly bear their immediate testimony to 
miracles as matters of fact? Is there, in short, any 
first-hand testimony? To this we answer emphatically 
in the affirmative; and as the matter is sometimes 
spoken of as if it were doubtful, we proceed to investi- 
gate it at some length.’ 

Assuming the authenticity of the chief books of the 
New Testament, which has been already treated of ina 


1 For example, the author of Supernatural Religion speaks as follows : 
‘Throughout the whole New Testament,. . . there is no instance what- 
ever, that we can remember, in which a writer claims to have himself 
performed a miracle. Wherever there has existed even the comparatively 
accurate means of information, which a person who himself performed a 
miracle might possess, the miraculous entirely fails, and it is found only 
where faith or credulity usurps the place of knowledge.’—Swpernatural 
Religion, vol. i. pp. 200 f. (4th edition), This statement the author 
endeavours to justify at length in od ti pp. 325 ff. 


200 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


previous study, we might say at first sight that the direct 
personal evidence is abundant. There is the testimony 
of Matthew, who was an apostle and companion of the 
Lord, and therefore an eye-witness of many of the 
numerous miracles which he reports. There is the 
testimony of Mark, who was ‘the interpreter of Peter,’ 
and who ‘wrote accurately all that he remembered’ of 
that apostle’s narratives. There is the testimony of 
Luke, who, though like Mark not an eye-witness himself, 
nevertheless, as he tells us in the preface to his Gospel, 
narrates the Gospel incidents as ‘they delivered them 
unto us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses.’ 
In other words, his Gospel is a narrative of what he had 
directly received from the eye-witnesses. There is 
above all the testimony. of John, which is direct and 
personal in the highest sense, and embraces some of our 
Lord’s most striking miracles,and more especially the 
raising of Lazarus from the dead. ‘He saw and 
believed,’ even ‘the disciple who testifieth these things, 
and wrote these things, in the fourth Gospel. Accord- 
ingly in the Gospels we have full and explicit testimony 
to our Lord’s miracles, in two direct, in two indirect no 
doubt, but indirect very much in the sense that their 
authors are the immediate reporters of the testimony 
of those who were eye-witnesses. 

When we pass to the other books of the New Testament, 


1 Compare John xx. 8 and xxi, 24. 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 201 


we find similar and direct testimony. The Acts of the 
Apostles was written by Luke, and as we have already 
seen, he relates a considerable portion of it in the first 
person, ‘we.’ That is, he narrates as one who had been 
present as an eye-witness. But it will be found that 
those portions which he narrates in his own name are 
just as full of miraculous events as the other portions. 
He relates in the personal passages the expulsion of 
‘the spirit of divination’ from the damsel at. Philippi 
(ch, xvi. 16-18) ; and also, we may safely say, the mira- 
culous deliverance of Paul and Silas from the prison 
in that city (xvi. 25-40). We find in the narrative 
given in the first person, the restoration of Eutychus 
to life (xx. 6-12), Paul’s deliverance from the evil 
results of the vipers bite in Malta, and the healing 
of Publius and others of their diseases in that island 
(xxviii.). Again, passing to the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
we find its author also bearing direct personal testimony 
to miracles as well-known facts. He testifies that the 
gospel ‘was confirmed unto us by them that heard [the 
Lord], God also bearing them witness with signs and 
wonders and divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy 
Ghost’ (Heb. ii. 3, 4). In view of the peculiar nature of 
the book, we do not adduce the evidence of the Revela- 
tion of John, though it is accepted by the most negative 
school of critics as the genuine production of that 
apostle. Enough has been said to show that we have 


202 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


abundant personal testimony of the direct kind to 
miracles in the New Testament, and that it is given 
in such a way as to imply that they were regarded in 
the Church as undeniable facts. 

We come now, however, to what is more especially 
the object of this study, namely, to consider the un- 
questioned and unquestionable evidence of Paul to 
miracles. In doing so, we restrict ourselves, as in a 
previous study, to his first four Epistles, — Romans, 
1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. We restrict our- 
selves rigidly to these Epistles for the reason there 
referred to at length, that while the extreme school 
largely reject the Gospels, the Acts, and the other New 
Testament books except Revelation, they are united 
in accepting these four Epistles. Baur, the repre- 
sentative and late head of the negative school in 
Germany; Renan, the representative of the school 
in France; and the author of Supernatural Religion, 
the representative of the school in England, —all 
unite in accepting these Epistles as indisputably 
genuine.’ Here then we have a firm and sure founda- 
tion on which to stand, even in the judgment of our 
most determined opponents. Accordingly we confine 
our attention at present to these incontestably 
genuine Epistles, and we affirm that in them Paul 


1 See Study V., ‘ The Testimony of the Unquestioned Epistles of Paul ;’ 
and especially pp, 110 ff. 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, 203 


bears his explicit and direct personal testimony to 
miracles, 

We do not need to dwell at present on the character 
of the witness. We have done so already, and have 
seen that he is a witness of the very highest class, who 
proved his truthfulness by forsaking all for Christ, by 
suffering for His sake shame, persecution, and a martyr’s 
death; who lived in the midst of the events, and had, 
both as persecutor and apostle, the very best means of 
sifting the whole matter to the very bottom, so as to 
arrive at the absolute truth. 

It seems almost certain that no man of average 
intelligence and unbiassed mind can read the four 
Epistles just referred to without concluding that Paul 
himself believed in miracles, and that he appears to bear 
his testimony to their existence as a fact notorious in 
the Church. This is admitted even by the negative 
school itself. The author of Swpernatural Religion 
says: ‘It must not be supposed that we in the slightest 
degree question the fact that the Apostle Paul believed 
in the reality of supernatural intervention in mundane 
affairs, or that he asserted the actual occurrence of 
certain miracles.’* Of course these critics must try to 
break down this testimony in every possible way. They 
attempt to do so. partly by affirming that Paul was an 
ecstatic visionary, partly by the rationalistic process of 


1 Supernatural Religion, vol. iii. p. 346. 


204. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


explaining away words and passages, and partly by 
what we cannot but call the process of special pleading ; 
in short, by the most arbitrary and capricious methods. 
What we now mean to do is, to collect the testimony of 
the witness, and place it clearly before the minds of 
readers in its simple and natural meaning, leaving them 
as the jury to come to a decision for themselves. 

We merely mention at present the apostle’s narrative 
of the testimony of ‘the twelve’ (twice), of Cephas and 
James, and of the more than ‘five hundred brethren,’ to 
the miracle of our Lord’s resurrection (I Cor. xv. 3-7). 
The apostle came into close contact with many of these 
witnesses, so that if his testimony in that passage is not 
quite first-hand, it is certainly second-hand testimony of 
the very highest type. But we pass over the passage at 
present, not merely because it may be said to contain 
second-hand testimony, but because it will come up in 
its proper place in the following study. | 

We now come to the apostle’s direct personal testi- 
mony. We find him bearing testimony to the fact that 
he had received revelations of truth directly from Christ. 
He says in Gal. i. 11, 12, ‘I certify you, brethren, that 
the gospel which was preached of me is not after man ; 
for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, 
but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. The plain mean- 
ing of such language is, that Paul had supernatural or 
miraculous revelations of the truth, though in what 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 205 


particular way we may not be able exactly to tell. We 
cannot get rid of the force of this by affirming, that this 
was only his way of expressing the dawning of the truth 
on his mind by the natural processes of thought or 
logic; for he can and does distinguish clearly between 
his own thoughts or opinions and such revelations. 
Hence we find him speaking of certain things as being 
his own ‘judgment, and distinguishing explicitly 
between his own teaching and commandments, and 
those of the Lord (see 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10, 12, 25, 40). 
That is, he can and does distinguish between his own 
views, and truth received by direct revelation from 
Christ ; so that, when he speaks in such emphatic terms 
as he does in the passage quoted above, of having 
received the gospel ‘by the revelation of Christ, we 
may confidently accept his statement as a simple fact. 
In other words, he bears direct personal testimony, the 
testimony of his own consciousness, to a miraculous 
event. 

Another most important contribution to the apostle’s 
testimony to the miraculous is his own vision of the 
risen Lord. He says, in 1 Cor. ix. 1, ‘Have I not seen 
Jesus Christ our Lord?’ And again, in 3 Cor. xv. 8, 
after recounting five different appearances of the risen 
Saviour, he adds, ‘ Last of all, He was seen of me also, 
as of one born out of due time. When we view this 
vision in the light of Gal. i. 15-17, we may well believe 


206 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


that it took place on the way to Damascus. In any 
case, it was clearly a view of Christ, as an external 
object, by the physical eye. He says, and means his 
readers to believe, that he saw the Lord Jesus on that 
occasion, as an outward reality, in the same way as He 
was seen by Peter, James, the eleven apostles, and the 
five hundred brethren between His resurrection and His 
ascension. This is proved by the facts that it is 
mentioned along with the five appearances, and that the 
very same word is used in reference to it as in reference 
to these appearances. Beyond a doubt Paul means the 
reader to believe that it was a view of Christ with his 
bodily eyes. It is true that he tells us in 2 Cor. 1A Ate 
of an ecstatic vision which he had had; and the objec- 
tion is at once raised, May not this appearance on the 
way to Damascus have been merely a subjective vision 
also,—the vision of a mere enthusiast with excited 
nerves,—a vision which had no corresponding external 
reality? But the apostle clearly means to distinguish 
between the two. His vision of Jesus he regards as a 
case of actual sight with his eyes; the other vision was a 
vision by the mind ina state of ecstasy or rapture, he 
classes it with ‘visions and revelations, and declares 
that he cannot tell whether he was in the body or out of 
the body. And surely the consideration that he distin- 
cuishes so explicitly between physical and ecstatical 
vision, should confirm our belief that the appearance of 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 207 


Christ to him on the way to Damascus was an objective 
fact, that is, a real miracle. 

The next step in our argument is his testimony to the 
existence of miracles and miraculous powers in the early 
Church. And first of all we makea passing reference 
to the ‘gift of tongues.’ This gift is referred to once 
and again in 1 Cor. xii, and at great length in chap. xiv. 
What was the exact nature of this phenomenon may be 
matter of dispute among Christians themselves ; but 
one thing at least is plain—viz., that it was something 
supernatural or miraculous. The apostle bears explicit 
testimony to the existence of the gift as notorious in 
Corinth, and he declares that he himself spoke with 
tongues more than any of them. That is, he testifies 
to the gift of tongues as existing around him in the 
Church, and declares that he himself possessed it. 
Could he mistake the testimony of his own ears and 
his own consciousness ? 

We admit, however, that the dust and difficulty which 
have been raised around the gift of tongues, even among 
evangelical writers, is so great as to mar the force of 
the evidence to the supernatural which it involves. 
Accordingly we pass on to other forms of the apostle’s 
testimony, and come next to the ‘ gifts of healings,’ of 
which we find reiterated mention in 1 Cor. xii. (vers, 
9, 28, 30). The obvious and natural meaning of this 
expression is very plain. It signifies gifts or powers of 


208 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


miraculous healing, which manifested themselves in 
miraculous healings. We cannot explain it away by 
saying that, as some of the other gifts mentioned in the 
chapter may be explained on merely natural principles, 
therefore this may be merely natural too, and may only 
mean natural skill in dealing with sickness, and a know- 
ledge of medicine. This, it seems very apparent, is a 
process of the purest rationalism. There can be no 
reasonable doubt as to the intended and fair meaning of 
the words. There can be no doubt as to the way in 
which a Greek would interpret them, and there can be 
as little doubt as to the New Testament usage. We 
not only find that many miracles of healing were per- 
formed by our Lord, but we also find it said that ‘ He 
gave His apostles power to heal all manner of sickness 
and all manner of disease’ (Matt. x. 1; Mark iii. 15, 
xvi. 18; Luke ix. 1). We also see in the Acts that 
His apostles are stated to have performed ‘ mzracles of 
healing’ (Acts iii, etc.); and when we compare the 
expression ‘ gifts of healing’ with the above expressions, 
we see, from their close similarity, that something 
miraculous is meant, and not merely natural skill in 
medicine. No doubt, the texts just referred to will be 
said by negative critics to be taken from New Testa- 
ment books which were written long after the Epistles 
of Paul; but even on their own supposition that they 
were written in the first half of the second century, they 


ot lea 


ine 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 209 


are sufficiently near the age of the apostle to establish 
the force of the expression, especially when we consider 
that, as even these critics admit, the language must 
have been used orally long before the writing of the 
Gospels and the Acts. We conclude, therefore, that 
the apostle bears distinct testimony to the existence of 
miraculous gifts—and therefore miracles—of healing. 
But we also find the apostle bearing testimony to the 
existence of miracles as a fact apparently undenied and 
undeniable in the Church. In 1 Cor. xii. we find him 
saying: ‘To another (is given) the working of miracles’! 
(ver. 10); ‘God hath set in the Church miracles’? 
(ver. 28); and again, ‘Are all (workers of) miracles?’ 
(ver. 29). We find him, in like manner, in Gal. iii. 5 
referring to him ‘that worketh miracles among you,’ 
where the word is the same. In these passages, we 
venture to affirm, the meaning is sufficiently plain, and 
would never have been seriously questioned, except 
for dogmatic and apologetic purposes of a negative 
character. There is no adequate ground whatever for 
holding that Paul uses the Greek word under considera- 
tion * in a different sense from what it bears in the New 
Testament and early writers of the Church. According 
to New Testament usage, it means either miracles, or 
the power of working miracles, which comes to the same 
1 Greek, ivepyiuara duveéwewy, * Greek, duvé mes. 


3 Viz. Duve pers, 


16) 


210 . STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


thing. The passages which may be adduced in proof of 
this are sufficiently numerous and plain. We find the 
‘mighty works’ which our Lord had done in Chorazin, 
Bethsaida, and Capernaum denoted by the very word 
employed by Paul (Matt. xi. 20-23). We find it used 
in exactly the same sense in Mark (vi. 2, 5), in Luke 
(K1813) xix. 937); RA Cts (vile 13; xix. 1); and in 
Hebrews (ii. 4). From this we see that the word is 
commonly used in the New Testament as signifying 
objective or external miracles. In a few passages it 
may perhaps be taken rather as meaning miraculous 
powers, as, for example, in Matt. xiv. 2, where Herod 
is represented as saying of Jesus that ‘mighty powers 
work. in Him’ (cf. also Mark vi. 14; Matt. xiii. 54). 
But in either case, the result is substantially the same, 
and points to objective miracles. And, as we have said, 
there is no sufficient reason for supposing that Paul used 
the word in an entirely different sense from the other 
New Testament writers. He uses the singular in the 
same way as they do; he uses the plural once in the 
sense of governments,—just as they also do,—in a con- 
text where the meaning is plain (Rom. viii. 38); and 
therefore in the other passages, which are in contexts 
plainly dealing with the miraculous, we must conclude 
that he uses it in the sense which it generally bears 
in the New Testament, that is, miracles, or powers of 
working miracles. Indeed, we may affirm that in every 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, 211 


passage in the New Testament, outside of the four 
Epistles with which we have to do, where the word 
under consideration is used with verbs of working, it 
means miracles or miraculous powers, and there is no 
valid ground for interpreting it otherwise in the writings 
of Paul. We maintain, accordingly, that the expression 
‘working of miracles’ or ‘ miraculous powers,’ in the 
passages adduced, must refer either directly or indirectly 
to objective miracles. The apostle therefore bears his 
testimony to the existence of such miracles or powers of 
working miracles in the Christian Church, and refers to 
them as notorious and undeniable. 

We come, last of all, to examine another and most 
important passage. In 2 Cor, xii. 12, Paul says to the 
Corinthians, ‘Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought 
among you in all patience, zz signs, and wonders, and 
mighty deeds’ It is necessary to observe the con- 
nection in which this verse stands, His apostleship 
had been questioned by certain Opponents at Corinth, 

1 Greek, ty onpelois, xa} Tipacs, xa) duvawecs, 

It may be expected that we should add here, as a second passage in 
which the apostle explicitly refers to his own miracles, Rom, xv. 18, 19 
(cf. Revised Version); but as the last two chapters of this Epistle are 
rejected by both Baur and the author of Supernatural Religion, they are 
excluded from our consideration. At the same time, it is right to say that 
these chapters are accepted by Hilgenfeld and Renan, and, to use Alford’s 
expression, can only be rejected by the “very insanity of hypercriticism.’ 
Accepting them as unquestionably genuine, we see that Paul therein bears 


explicit testimony to the facts that he himself wrought miracles, and that 
the other apostles wrought them also, 


212 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


and in the preceding verse he says, ‘In nothing am I 
behind the very chiefest apostles.’ Then he goes on in 
this verse to give the proof; for ‘truly the signs of 
an apostle were wrought among you,’ etc. There is 
scarcely any need to say that past interpreters have 
unanimously understood this verse to mean that Paul, 
or God through Paul, wrought among the Corinthians 
visible miracles in attestation of his apostleship. We 
may venture to affirm that this is the only natural 
meaning of the verse, and that no other would ever 
have been wrested out of it unless it had been 
necessary for the support of dogmatic unbelief. The 
verse, we believe, unquestionably means that Paul 
claims to have wrought miracles himself at Corinth, 
and on no other ground can his argument have the 
slightest force. | 

The question which we have first to look at here is, 
What is the meaning of the accumulated expression, 
‘sions, and wonders, and mighty deeds’? It is the 
strongest and most emphatic expression for external 
miracles known in the New Testament, and in ancient 
scriptural Greek. We have already considered the 
meaning of the word rendered ‘mighty deeds. We 
have now to consider the meaning of the other two 
words, ‘signs and wonders,’ and we take them together 
for the sake of brevity, and because they are frequently 
used together. The question then is, What do the words 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 213 


so translated * habitually mean in Scripture Greek ? 
The answer is by no means difficult. 

The apostle may have derived the formula from the 
Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Old Testament. 
He used this translation habitually, it was his Bible to 
a large extent, and hence we naturally ask, what is the 
meaning of the words there? The formula is used 
altogether between twenty and thirty times in the 
Septuagint, and there can be no doubt whatever about 
its meaning. It is the highest expression which this 
version knows for miracles. It is found three times in 
Exodus, applied to the ‘signs and wonders’ performed 
by God through Moses in the land of Egypt (vii. 3, xi. 
9, 10). It is used ten times in Deuteronomy, and in 
seven it is applied to the same miracles in Egypt (Deut. 
Iv. 34, Vi. 22, vii. 19, xi. 3, etc.); once in Nehemiah 
(ix. 10), thrice in the Psalms (Ixxvii. 43, civ. 26, cxxxiv. 
g), twice in Jeremiah (xxxii. 20, 21), all with the same 
explicit reference. In these passages, therefore, it 
means miracles, beyond a doubt. Of the remaining 
passages, in one it refers to the ‘curses’ which God 
would bring upon Israel for disobedience (Deut. xxviii. 
46), where the idea of the supernatural is also apparent. 
In two passages (Isa. viii. 18, xx. 3) Isaiah uses it of 
himself as being a sign and a wonder to Israel, where 
it is true the miraculous is not so obvious. In three 


1Viz. onusia xal ripara, 


214 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


other passages the miraculous is clearly meant—Deut. 
xiii. 1, 2, and Dan. iii. 33, vi. 27,the last two passages 
referring to the miraculous incidents in the life of 
Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. In every case where the 
formula is used with a verb of action, it signifies external 
and visible miracles,and we see that it is especially 
applied to the miracles of Moses. In short, the Septua- 
gint knows no higher form of words to denote miracles, 
and it was the Bible which Paul used, and from which 
he probably derived the expression. 

We find the continuity of meaning between the Old 
Testament and the New Testament age kept up in the 
Apocrypha. The expression occasionally occurs there, 
and evidently with the same general force. In Baruch 
ii, 11 it is used explicitly of the signs and wonders in 
the land of Egypt. It occurs twice in the Wisdom of 
Solomon, which was written about 100 B.C., and was 
possibly known to Paul (cf. Rom. ix. 21 with Wisd. 
xv. 7). In one of these passages it may mean unusual 
natural events (viii. 8), yet in the other (x. 16) it again 
has its usual reference to the miracles in the land of 
Egypt. 

Turning to Josephus, who was not only a Jew, but 
also a contemporary, to a certain extent, of Paul, we 
find the expression used occasionally in his writings, 
and distinctly in the sense of something miraculous or 
supernatural. We do not refer to the fact that he uses 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, 215 


both words separately, and generally ‘sign’ in reference 
to the miracles of Moses, but to his use of both words 
together, as in the verse at present before us. We find 
him applying them to the regression of the shadow on 
the sun-dial of Ahaz, the sign given to Hezekiah (Aziz. 
x. 2. I); to miracles which impostors pretended should 
be wrought by the providence of God (xx. 8. 6); and 
again, to the signs and wonders which preceded the 
destruction of Jerusalem (Wars, Introd. 11). There 
can be no doubt that Josephus, the contemporary of 
Paul, uses the words as denoting miracles. 

We now come to the New Testament, and the mean- 
ing of the words there. The expression occurs about 
fourteen times outside of those Pauline Epistles to 
which we are at present restricted. It is applied in 
three passages to miracles which impostors professed 
to work (Matt. xxiv. 24; Mark xiii. 22; 2 Thess. ii. 9) ; 
eight times to miracles wrought by the apostles or 
apostolic men (Acts ii. 43, iv. 30, v. 12, vi. 8, xiv. 3, 
xv. 12; [Rom. xv. 19]; Heb. ii. 4); once to the miracles 
performed by Moses in the land of Egypt (Acts vii. 36), 
and twice to the miracles performed by our Lord (Acts 
ii. 22; John iv. 48, more generally), in all of which the 
meaning plainly is external, visible miracles. The 
addition of the word ‘mighty deeds’ to these two 
words only increases the force of the expression, as. in 
other passages (Acts ii. 22; Heb. ii. 4; [2 Thess. ii. 9]). 


216 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Surely it is plain from these texts what is the meaning 
of the expression in the New Testament. Beyond all 
reasonable contradiction, it refers to visible miracles or 
supernatural events. It is the strongest New Testa- 
ment expression for miracles ; and if it does not mean 
miracles, then what other stronger word or expression 
can be used for them? If Paul adopted the expression 
from the Gospels, written or oral, it is clear that he 
can have meant only visible miracles in the highest 
sense. When we find that the expression means 
‘miracles’ both in the Septuagint and the New Testa- 
ment (written or oral), from one or other of which 
sources Paul must have taken it, can it mean anything 
else than ‘miracles’ in the writings of the apostle? 
Surely not. We are therefore forced to the conclusion, 
that the apostle used the formula in its accepted sense 
as the highest expression for real, objective, visible 
miracles. The verse, accordingly, contains a plain state- 
ment by the apostle that he himself wrought miracles ; 
and clearly, unless he was insane, he could not be 
mistaken in his testimony. Is not this direct, personal 
testimony to miracles? 

But may not the phrase which we have been discuss- 
ing refer to moral effects of a striking nature wrought 
within the minds of the Corinthians, akin to reforma- 
tion, new impulses, increase of moral strength, and the 
like? Is not this proved by the fact that the Greek 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 217 


for ‘among you’ is really ‘in you’?! Certainly not. 
For, first of all, in no case whatever is the phrase 
‘signs and wonders’ used of merely moral effects 
wrought in the soul, but only of objective events visible 
to the eye. And secondly, while the words rendered 
‘among you’ may mean ‘in you,’ they are the common 
Greek for ‘among you,’ and no other preposition than 
that employed could have expressed ‘among’ more 
perfectly. To show that the preposition used habitu- 
ally means ‘among’ when joined to a plural noun, we 
might adduce numerous passages from the New Testa- 
ment. Let the following out of many from the four 
Epistles suffice : ‘That He might be the first-born among 
many brethren’ (Rom. viii. 29); ‘I say to every one 
that is among you’ (xii. 3); ‘I determined not to know 
anything among you’ (1 Cor. ii. 2); ‘We speak wisdom 
among them that are perfect’ (ii. 6) ; ‘Is it so that there 
is not a wise man among you?’ (vi. 5), etc. As expres- 
sions exactly akin to that under consideration, we may 
quote the following: ‘If I had not done among them 
the works which none other man did’ (John xv. 24); 
‘By the hands of the apostles were many signs and 
wonders wrought among the people’ (Acts v. 12); 
‘Stephen did great wonders and miracles among the 
people’ (vi. 8). In these expressions the preposition 
is used with reference to external miracles, exactly as 


1 Greek, tv duty, 


218 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


in the verse we have been discussing. In short, the 
preposition used regularly means ‘among’ when joined 
with a plural noun, and is so used in the Greek, and 
translated in the English Testament, upwards of a 
hundred times. There is therefore nothing in all this 
to shake the reference to physical miracles, but every- 
thing exactly as if such miracles had been meant. 

It is sometimes adduced as a fatal objection to Paul’s 
testimony, that he only makes general statements, and 
does not narrate any one particular case in which he 
wrought a miracle. This is true, but the reason is plain. 
The miracles referred to were notorious,—well known 
to the Corinthians as wrought amongst them, and not 
denied apparently by any of them. It would therefore 
have been quite out of place to have given detailed 
cases, and quite foreign to the apostle’s manner. 
Accordingly, it is utterly groundless to affirm that 
because he gives no detailed case, but only general 
references, therefore he did not really work any miracles. 
As well might we'argue that because he does not give 
any fully-detailed cases of conversion in the Epistles 
to the Corinthians and Galatians, but only general 
statements, therefore no one in these churches had 
been converted by Paul. No individual miracles of 
our Lord are narrated in detail in the Acts of the 
Apostles, and yet no one can doubt that His miracles 
were well known to the speakers and the writer. 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 219 


Once more, it is very natural to object that we have 
not the opportunity of cross-examining the witness. 
This, of course, is literally the case, and it cannot be 
helped. Still, we have what is very much equivalent to 
a cross-examination. There were many men in the 
churches of Corinth and Galatia, and in other churches, 
bitterly opposed to Paul, who were ready to scan with 
eager eyes any flaw in his character, his reasoning, and 
his testimony, and expose it to the utmost. Yet, in 
addressing such men, he boldly and categorically refers 
to miracles as existing facts——to his own miracles as 
notorious and undeniable facts, so undeniable that he 
refers to them as a matter of course, and admitting of 
no doubt even on the part of his enemies. To have 
done this, had the whole thing been a delusion or a 
hoax, would have been sheer madness on the part of 
Paul; and his opponents would soon have shown up 
the hollowness of his pretence, overwhelmed him with 
infamy and ridicule, and hurled him for ever from his 
position as an apostle. It is certain, however, that they 
did no such thing, and that the opposition to the apostle 
soon died out of the Corinthian church. In other words, 
the statements of the apostle in reference to his own 
working of miraclesin particular, and the existence of 
miracles in general, bore the test of hostile scrutiny and 
cross-examination. We accept, therefore, the testimony 
of Paul to miracles as of the highest possible kind. 


220 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


We can now go a step further. Looking at 2 Cor. 
Xil. 12, we see that Paul says, in the verse immediately 
preceding, ‘In nothing am I behind the very chiefest 
apostles. He does not say he is ahead of them in 
regard to miracles, but only that he is at least abreast 
of them. Surely this naturally implies that the other 
apostles wrought miracles as well as himself. Again, 
he goes on in ver. 13 to say, ‘For what is it wherein 
ye were inferior to other churches?’ The Corinthians 
were not inferior to other churches in regard to the 
miracles which had been wrought among them, but 
he does not say they were superior, and surely this 
implies that miracles had been wrought in other 
churches also. In short, just as Paul had wrought 
miracles, so also had the other apostles ; and as miracles 
had been wrought in Corinth, so had they also been in 
other churches. In other words, we have here the 
distinct testimony of Paul to the fact that miracles were 
wrought not merely by himself and in the church at 
Corinth, but by the other apostles and in the other early 
churches. 

It should likewise be distinctly noted that the testi- 
mony of Paul is practically the testimony of the early 
Church. To speak of it as the testimony of a solitary 
and perhaps peculiar man, is evidently absurd. He 
spoke as the representative of the Church, and gave 
utterance to what was the universal belief of the Church. 


DIRECT PERSONAL TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, 221 


These Epistles bear positive testimony to the fact, 
that he had the closest relationship with the churches 
in Jerusalem and Judza, Syria and Cilicia, Galatia, 
Ephesus, and Asia Minor in general, Macedonia and 
Greece, and even indirectly with Rome,—in short, with 
the churches in almost all the Eastern world (2 Cor. 
xi. 28). This, too, was in the first generation of 
Christians, before the year 60, when the Church was 
fully able to criticise and correct his statements, had 
that been possible and necessary. Accordingly, when 
we find that this testimony to miracles is that of a man 
who was so widely and vitally connected with the 
Church, and that it was accepted and endorsed by the 
whole Church, when the work of refuting it, if at all 
assailable, was very easy, we may reasonably accept it 
as practically the testimony of the universal Church. 
We now conclude our investigation, and the general 
result is this. We have had before us a witness of 
the very highest character and veracity, a man of 
the best education, who had been a bigoted Jew and 
a furious persecutor, but under the force of irresistible 
evidence became a Christian ; who, both as persecutor 
and Christian apostle alike, had every opportunity of 
examining into the truth of the Christian miracles, 
and who was prepared to seal, and did seal, his testi- 
mony with his blood. He declares that the apostles 
and other early Christians with whom he came into 


222 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the closest contact had seen the risen Lord ; he declares 
that he himself had seen Him; he bears testimony to 
the existence of various kinds of miracles in the Church 
as a notorious fact ; he declares that he himself wrought 
miracles, and speaks of it as a thing well known, un- 
denied, and undeniable even by his bitterest enemies. 
Surely, unless he was positively insane, he could not 
be deceived as to the testimony of his own senses, and 
as to that which he actually did himself, and for which 
he had the testimony of his own consciousness. Accord- 
ingly, we venture to affirm that the conclusion to which 
our investigation has led us is, that in the New Testa- 
ment we have direct personal testimony to miracles, and 
that of the highest kind; so that if we regard miracles 
as provable by testimony at all, we have the most 
powerful reason for still accepting them as belonging 
to those things which are to be ‘most surely believed 
among us.’ 


IX, 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, AND WHAT IT 
IMPLIES. 


‘It is said that the theo-philanthropist Larevelliere- 
Lépeaux once confided to Talleyrand his disappoint- 
ment at the ill-success of his attempt to bring into 
vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of bene- 
volent rationalism which he had invented to meet the 
wants of a benevolent age. “ His propaganda made no 
way,” he said. “What was he to do?” he asked. The 
ex-bishop politely condoled with him, feared it was a 
difficult task to found a new religion, more difficult than 
could be imagined, so difficult that he hardly knew 
what to advise! “Still’;—so he*went on after a 
moment’s reflection,— “there is one plan which you 
might at least try: I should recommend you to be 
crucified, and to rise again the third day.”’? 

This statement so tersely put contains within it an 
all-important double-edged truth. It contains the 
explanation of the failure of mere man-made systems 


1 Natural Religion, p. 181. 


224 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


of religion. They fail to a large extent because they 
want the divine credentials of miracles like our Lord’s 
resurrection, and the spiritual power contained in such 
a supernatural fact. But it also contains the explana- 
tion of the success of Christianity. It is to be found 
in the fact and power of our Lord’s resurrection. We 
may sometimes meet with those who profess to be 
Christians, and yet affirm that the truth of Christianity 
depends but little upon the reality of the resurrection ;' 
but Strauss, from his position of determined antagon- 
ism, is acute enough to perceive that it is ‘the centre of 
the centre, the real heart of Christianity, and says, that 
‘it can scarcely be doubted that with it the truth of 
Christianity stands or falls,’ 

It is clear from the New Testament that the apostles 
attached the profoundest importance to the resurrection 
of Christ. In their estimation it was the crowning test 
in regard to His divine mission and propitiatory work. 
If it was false, then His mission was a delusion, His 
teaching no less a delusion, and His death that of an 
impostor, or at best that of an amiable enthusiast. If 
it was true, then He is the divinely-appointed Messiah, 
His teaching the eternal truth of God, and His death 
the propitiation for the sins of the world. Hence it is 
that the apostles were required, as an important part of 
their work, to bear personal testimony to the resurrec- 


1 See Appendix, Note XIII. 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 225 


tion. Hence it is that we find them in their early 
sermons, as recorded in the Acts, always giving a fore- 
most place to this grand truth. Hence it is that we 
find it not only laid down as a fact, but taken for 
cranted in all the leading books of the New Testament. 
And hence it is that we find Paul very explicitly 
declaring, ‘If Christ be not risen, our faith is vain, 
and we are yet in our sins’ (1 Cor. xv. 17). Indeed, we 
might almost say that the resurrection of Christ is the 
keystone in the arch of the Christian evidences. If it 
be removed or broken to pieces, the arch collapses: if 
it holds, the arch is strong and safe, and able to bear 
upon it the weight of the whole system of Christian 
truth. 

In endeavouring to establish the fact of the resur- 
rection, it is of importance at the outset that we clearly 
see what is the kind of proof which we have a right to 
expect. It is an event of the past, an historical event, and 
that determines at once that the proof must be mainly 
historical. We cannot expect mathematical proof ; 
for it is not a mathematical truth. We cannot expect 
the proof of our own senses; for it is a past and nota 
present event. We cannot expect the proof of intuition ; 
for that is restricted to necessary and axiomatic truth. 
It is an historic event belonging to the past, and there- 
fore, from the nature of the case, we must be content 


mainly with historic proof, 
1% 


226 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


In approaching the consideration of the evidence, it 
may be well to observe, that there is a distinctly-felt 
fitness and consistency between the person and character 
of Christ and the fact of His resurrection. He is repre- 
sented as the Incarnate Word,as God manifest in the flesh, 
as the Holy One of God, holy and harmless and undefiled 
and separate from sinners. Our Christian instinct at 
once sees that it falls in with the nature of things that 
such a Person should not see corruption. We can 
scarcely think of Him becoming the prey of ordinary 
- decomposition in the grave, without a feeling of the 
utmost incongruity. It may be very natural for man, 
whose body has been poisoned and permeated with sin, 
to become the prey of corruption ; but it is quite other- 
wise with the body in which God became incarnate, and 
which knew no taint of sin. ‘It was not possible that 
He should be holden of death.” Furthermore, it is very 
obvious that the resurrection was a most natural pledge 
that He had completed His appointed work, that the 
conditions of the covenant had been fulfilled, and that 
the Father had fully accepted His propitiation. In 
short, it fits, with the utmost consistency, into the New 
Testament doctrine in regard to the person and work 
of Christ, and therefore has all the force which the 
argument from natural congruity can give. 

We find that our Lord distinctly foretold the fact 
that He should rise again. -He did so repeatedly, and 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 227 


utterances to this effect are recorded in all the evan- 
gelists. He declared that, ‘as Jonah was three days 
and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son 
of man be three days and three nights in the heart of 
the earth’ (Matt. xii. 40),—a prophecy this all the more 
likely to have been vividly remembered from its peculiar 
and memorable form. We find another explicit state- 
ment in Matt. xvi. 21, in connection with the strong 
rebuke to Peter, ‘Get thee behind Me, Satan,’ a cir- 
cumstance well calculated to impress it deeply upon 
the minds of the apostles. It is to be noted that this 
prophecy is also related by Mark (chap. viii. 27-33), 
and that he wrote his Gospel from the recollections of 
Peter, who could not possibly have forgotten the cir- 
cumstance. Again, He charged His disciples after the 
transfiguration, that they should ‘tell the vision to no 
man, until the Son of man be risen again from the 
dead’ (Matt. xvii.g; Mark ix..9). It is to be noticed 
that this announcement is not only given in two 
Gospels, but is also connected with an incident which 
must have helped to fix it indelibly in the minds of the 
apostles. Once more, we find Him saying in John 
ii. 19, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will 
raise it up,’ in which He refers, as John declares, to His 
resurrection. That this statement was actually made 
by Christ is rendered certain in the highest degree by 
the fact, that it is brought up in Matthew and Mark in 


228 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


connection with His crucifixion (Matt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 
4o; Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29). Here again the prophecy 
is bound up with a statement which made a deep im- 
pression on the minds of those who heard it. We pass 
over other prophecies of a more general kind, such as 
Matt. xvii. 22, 23, Mark ix. 30, 31, and John xii. 24, and 
confine ourselves to the above. We would only draw 
attention to the fact, that they are to be found in all the 
evangelists, and are connected with incidents or utter- 
ances so striking that they were sure, apart from any 
theory of inspiration, to have been correctly remembered. 

We now come to the fact itself and the historical 
proof of it. It is natural, first of all, to inquire what 
the Roman guards had to say; for they were the only 
persons present. They were not men likely to be easily 
deceived or frightened, and had no friendly feeling 
towards Jesus; not to speak of the stern severity of 
the Roman discipline. “Yet they reported to the chief 
priests that an earthquake had taken place, that a 
strange apparition had appeared and rolled away the 
stone. It is not said that they actually saw Jesus come 
forth from the tomb, and probably this may not have 
been the case. But overwhelmed though they were 
with terror, it is certain that they knew that the tomb 
was opened and that the body had disappeared, They 
reported so much to the chief priests, and agreed on the 
reception of a bribe to keep silence in regard to the 


THE RESURRECTION. OF CHRIST. 229 


miracle, and to declare that ‘His disciples came by 
night, and stole Him away while they slept’ (Matt. 
Xxviii. 2-4, 11-15). In other words, we find that the 
Roman soldiers who acted as guard over the sepulchre 
by night, bear their testimony, as far as could be ex- 
pected, to the fact of our Lord’s resurrection. 

We next come to the testimony of the apostles. And 
here let it be observed that we have no reason to believe 
that we have a record of the whole of our Lord’s appear- 
ances after the resurrection. Indeed, we have good 
reason for believing that we have not, just as we have 
not a full record of His miracles before the resurrection. 
At all events, when Luke says that to His apostles 
He ‘showed Himself alive after His passion by many 
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and 
speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
God, there is room to believe that other appearances 
and conversations took place besides those recorded in 
the sacred books. 

We find the fact that the resurrection took place on 
the third day recorded by all the evangelists and the 
Apostle Paul, and that in the most explicit terms. We 
have distinct notice in the New Testament of at least 
ten separate appearances. It is a little difficult to 
determine the exact order of these, but the following 
is probably correct: —I. The appearance to Mary 
Magdalene, Mark xvi. 9; John xx. 16: II. To the 


230 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


other women, Matt. xxviii. 9, 10: III. To Peter, Luke 
Xxiv. 34; 1 Cor. xv.5: IV. To the two disciples on the 
way to Emmaus, Luke xxiv. 13-33: V. To the apostles, 
Thomas being absent, Luke xxiv. 36-44; John xx. 
19-23: WI. To the eleven apostles, John xx. 26-29: 
VII. "To the disciples: at’ the’ Sea; of: Tiberias, “Jolin 
xxi.: VIII. To ‘more than five hundred brethren,’ pro- 
bably including the eleven apostles, on a mountain in 
Galilee, Matt. xxvill. 16; ».Cor. xv.6: IX. To James, 
I Cor. xv. 7: X. To the apostles at the Mount of Olives 
immediately before the ascension, Acts i, 4-12. In short, 
we have two appearances recorded by Matthew, three 
by Mark, four by Luke, four by John, and five by Paul. 

We cannot enter into a detailed discussion of those 
different appearances; but a few remarks are necessary. 
They are numerous, sufficiently numerous to attest the 
fact beyond a doubt. They were made to numerous 
witnesses of different classes, at different times, in 
different places and circumstances. Some of the cases 
are fully detailed, as that to the two disciples on the 
way to Emmaus, that to the seven disciples at the Sea 
of Galilee, and that to the eleven at the ascension. They 
had not merely the testimony of their eyesight, but of 
their ears, and even their hands as well (Matt. xxviii. 9). 
They had this witness, not merely in the dark or twilight, 
but in the daylight ; not merely for a passing moment, 
but for a length of time. They not only saw the Lord, 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 231 


but heard Him speak ; and they not only heard Him 
speak, but carried on lengthened conversations with 
Him. The apostles could not possibly be deceived in 
regard to the matter, and they had no reason to tell 
lies about it. They showed the depth of their convic- 
tion by devoting their lives to the proclamation of the 
truth, in spite of loss, of toil, of shame and persecution, 
and finally in many cases they sealed their testimony 
with their blood. If ever there was sufficient testimony 
to the real appearance and identity of a person, we may 
reasonably say that we have it here. 

When we pass from the direct testimony of the four 
evangelists to the other books of the New Testament, 
we find that the fact of the resurrection runs through 
them all. It formed one of the grand fundamental 
themes of the preaching of the apostles as recorded in 
the Acts. Peter dwelt on it at great length on the day 
of Pentecost in Jerusalem, where the event had taken 
place only seven weeks before, and when the imposture, 
had it been such, could easily have been detected and 
exposed (Acts ii. 22-33). He not only declares the 
resurrection of Christ, but affirms that he and all his 
fellow-apostles were witnesses of the fact. He boldly 
declares the same truth in the Sanhedrim, the very 
council which a few weeks before had condemned Jesus ; 
and it is plain that, instead of producing the dead body 
and exposing the delusion, they quailed before the 


232 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


dauntless witnesses, as they affirmed, ‘We cannot but 
speak the things which we have seen and heard’ (Acts 
iv. 10, 15-20). We find the same truth fully proclaimed 
by Paul in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (Acts xiii. 
29-37), in Athens, the very centre of ancient culture 
and philosophy (xvii. 31), and before Festus and Agrippa 
at Caesarea (xxvi. 23, 26).! Clearly, if we are to accept 
the testimony of the Acts at all, it is certain that the 
Church was founded on the fact of our Lord’s resurrection. 

We next proceed to consider the testimony of Peter 
as recorded by himself in his First Epistle This, as 
we have seen, is one of the fully-accredited books of the 
New Testament, and continued unquestioned down to 
the days of modern unbelief. We must bear in mind, 
as we discuss the testimony of Peter, that he was an 
apostle, an eye-witness of the risen Saviour, and even 
had a special appearance granted to himself. Now as 
to his testimony there can be no doubt. He declares 
that God the Father ‘hath begotten us again unto a 
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead’ (i. 3). Again he says, ‘God raised Him up from 
the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and 
hope might be in God’ (i. 21). And once more, at the 
close of the difficult passage in the third chapter, he 


1» Cf also SActs a, (21, 22, 21, 45, 1V. .33,°x. 40, 41. 

2 I leave the Second Epistle out of consideration, because of the doubts 
which long existed in regard to its authenticity, and which are still enter- 
tained even by some Christian authors. 


/ 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 233 


declares that ‘baptism doth now save us through the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ’ (iii. 21). It is as certain as 
language can make it, that Peter, the frequent eye- 
witness of the risen Lord, in his First Epistle testifies 
explicitly to the resurrection, and everywhere takes it 
for granted as an understood and fundamental fact. 
From the testimony of the eye-witness Peter, we pass 
to that of the eye-witness John, as given in the Revela- 
tion. And we have a very special reason for laying 
stress upon this testimony ; for it will be remembered 
that this is one of the five books of the New Testament 
accepted by the extreme school of negative criticism in 
our day. On their authority we may certainly accept it 
as genuine, and as written about the year 68. We ask 
then, Have we any testimony to our Lord’s resurrection 
in this book, which our opponents accept as the genuine 
work of John? We have, beyond all reasonable possi- 
bility of doubt. In chap. i. 5 he speaks of Jesus Christ 
as ‘the first-born of the dead, which, 'in spite of all 
ingenious and special pleading, can only mean that He 
was the first who had risen from the dead to resur- 
rection-life. In the same chapter (ver. 18) he represents 
the glorified Christ as saying, ‘I was dead, and behold 
I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death 
and of Hades.’ In like manner we read in chap. ii. 8, 
‘These things saith the first and the last, which was 
dead, and lived again.” There can be no reasonable 


234 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


doubt that these passages distinctly state, as much of 
the book distinctly implies, the fact of our Lord’s 
resurrection. In other words, John, the beloved apostle 
and eye-witness, in this book, which is accepted as 
genuine by the most hostile scholars, bears clear testi- 
mony to the resurrection. 

In considering the testimony of Paul, we restrict our- 
selves to that contained in his first four Epistles, already 
shown to be accepted as incontestably genuine by 
the extreme school of negative criticism in Germany, 
France, and England. It is not at all necessary to 
adduce general references to the fact; for from the 
beginning of Romans to the end of Galatians such 
references are numerous, both implicit and explicit. 

The passage which chiefly claims our attention is the 
well-known statement contained in 1 Cor. xv. 3-8, ‘I 
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that He rose 
again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and 
that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after 
that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at 
once; of whom the greater part remain unto this pre- 
sent, but some are fallen asleep. After that, He was 
seen of James, then of all the apostles.. And last of all 
He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.’ 

Now the testimony of this passage is very explicit 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 235 


and very much to the point. Paul had the most 
abundant and direct means of communicating with 
these apostles and disciples. He tells us in Galatians 
(chaps. i. and ii.) that he came into the closest contact 
with Cephas, James, and John, and those ‘which were 
of reputation’ at Jerusalem, and compared his Gospel 
with theirs. But as the resurrection was the keystone 
of the whole, it is certain that it must have formed a 
central question for consideration. Accordingly, there 
can scarcely be the slightest doubt that the apostle here 
relates the testimony which he had received from the 
apostles and early disciples. ‘It cannot be doubted, 
says the author of Swpernatural Religion, ‘that Paul 
was told that such appearances had taken place.” And 
Strauss declares no less emphatically, ‘There is no 
occasion to doubt that the Apostle Paul had heard this 
from Peter, James, and perhaps from others concerned ; 
and that all of these, even the five hundred, were firmly 
convinced that they had seen Jesus who had been dead, 
and alive again.’’ It ought also to be remembered that 
the apostle had himself been a persecutor, accustomed 
to examine and cross-examine the Christian martyrs 
and confessors, so that he knew all about the resur- 
rection from the side of the enemies as well as of the 
friends of Christianity. And once more, it should be 
remembered that the apostle is here dealing with 


1 New Life of Jesus, vol. i. p. 400. 


236 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


opponents who denied the doctrine of a real resurrection, 
and who would only have been too eager to refute his 
statements, had that been possible. Here then we have 
the statement of an undoubted contemporary, a man 
who knew the facts both as a persecutor and as an 
apostle, a statement made to opponents, a statement by 
a witness of the very highest character, who forsook all 
for his testimony, was ready at any moment to die for 
it, and at last did die for it. What higher testimony 
can we have or even conceive ? 

But it may be said that we have even higher and 
more direct testimony than this. The apostle says: 
‘Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out 
of due time’ (1 Cor. xv. 8). We have already dwelt at 
some length on this appearance in a previous study, and 
it is not necessary to do so again. As we then saw, 
there can be no doubt that the apostle here refers to a 
real external view of the risen and glorified Lord; to 
no spectral illusion, but a true objective appearance 
of Christ in His resurrection-body as it continues in 
heaven. As such it was really a proof of the resur- 
rection. Still, as several years, perhaps six or seven, 
had passed since the event, this appearance, to many 
minds, may not seem so powerful a proof. It may be 
said that if Moses could appear with a glorified body 
in the mount of transfiguration, without a previous 
resurrection, so also may it have been with Christ. Yet 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 237 


even in this view it was a miraculous appearance of 
Christ, which implied the truth of His resurrection. 
We say that it implied the reality of His resurrection ; 
for, like other miracles, it must have been at least a 
‘sign’ in attestation of truth, and very particularly, as 
appears from the connection in which Paul introduces it 
and the stress which he lays upon it, in attestation of 
the fact of Christ’s resurrection. In either case, there- 
fore, directly or indirectly, the appearance to the apostle 
was a proof of the event. 

Another powerful argument is to be found in the 
extraordinary change which took place in the minds of 
the apostles at the supposed date of the resurrection, 
It was a change, sudden, deep, thoroughgoing, and 
abiding. Before this date they were entangled in narrow, 
worldly views of Christ’s Messiahship; immediately 
thereafter, they broke through into a clear perception of 
its spiritual nature and world-wide bearing. Before it, 
they were overwhelmed with unutterable sorrow and 
depression, almost with helpless despair; immediately 
thereafter, they burst forth into exultant assurance and 
joy, and inextinguishable hope. Previously, they were 
feeble, timid, almost cowardly, so that the boldest 
among them denied the Lord when questioned by a 
servant-maid; all at once they became fearless and 
unflinching in their confession of Him, and in testifying 
to His resurrection. Previously, they were small and 


238 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


selfish in their aims, quarrelling about the most lucrative 
and honourable places in the expected worldly king- 
dom ; immediately thereafter, they have trampled out 
their selfishness, and are ready to sacrifice, and do 
sacrifice, all things, even life itself, for Christ. Such a 
change as this could have been produced only by a firm 
belief in the fact of the resurrection. This is admitted 
even by negative critics themselves. Baur, for example, 
says: ‘Only the miracle of the resurrection could dispel 
the doubt which appeared necessarily to dismiss faith 
itself into the eternal night of death.’ It is no doubt 
true that Baur might try to explain away ‘the miracle’ 
here as being only something mysterious and mental, 
though by no means supernatural. But he holds that 
the disciples had the ‘most firm and immovable faith’ 
in the resurrection. This, however, in their case almost 
necessarily implies that it was a real fact; for they had 
the best means of knowing, and could not be deceived 
as to what they saw, and heard, and felt. 

Closely connected with the above, is the argument 
derived from the early planting and remarkable success 
of the Church in Jerusalem. Of this we have the 
narrative at length in the opening chapters of the Acts. 
The apostles did not go away to Samaria or Antioch, 
Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome, to preach the resurrection 
and make the first beginning of the Church. They 


1 Kirchengeschichte d. drei ersten Fahrhunderte, p. 39. 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 239 


began at Jerusalem, where the event had taken place, 
and just seven weeks after it had taken place, when the 
memory of the past must have been quite fresh and 
minute. If it was an utter delusion, it would still be 
easy to extinguish it. The priests might still produce 
the dead body, and that would settle the matter. Or 
they might bring forward the soldiers of the Roman 
guard and have them examined on oath. Instead of 
doing that, however, they bribed them to keep silence in 
regard to what had actually taken place. Some at least 
of the disciples might have been frightened by per- 
secution and the terror of death, to become informers 
and expose the deception. But no such thing ever took 
place. On the contrary, three thousand were added to 
the Church in one day; very soon after, we read of five 
thousand Christian men in Jerusalem, not to speak of 
women and children ; and we are expressly told that ‘a 
great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.’ 
And all this was accomplished by the preaching of the 
resurrection, in the very city where it was declared to 
have taken place, and only seven weeks thereafter. If 
it was an utter delusion and a myth, surely it is im- 
possible reasonably to account for the planting and 
rapid progress of the Church, as described in the Acts 
and in Paul’s Epistles. In other words, the early plant- 
ing and the rapid success and continuance of the Church, 
form a very substantial proof of Christ’s resurrection. 


240 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


The Church is indeed the monument of His resurrection, 
and a monument reaching back to the very date. 

It may not be amiss to draw attention to the fact, 
that the existence of the Lord’s day as the special 
worship-day of the Church, is also a proof possessed 
of no small force. It is an institution running back 
without interruption to the very resurrection. In the 
Revelation of John (i. 10), one of the books accepted by 
negative critics, we have explicit mention made of it, 
under the name of ‘the Lord’s day,’ in such a way as to 
indicate that it was familiarly known. We find mention 
made of it under the name of ‘ the first day of the week’ 
in I Cor. xvi. 2, another of the books accepted by 
negative critics, and written about A.D. 57. In the Acts, 
we find that the disciples ‘came together on the first 
day of the week’ (Acts xx. 7). In the Gospel of John 
we find them assembled on the first Lord’s day after the 
resurrection (John xx. 26). And why was the worship- 
day changed from the seventh to the first day of the 
week? No other reason worth notice has been given, 
or can be given, than the fact that it was the day on 
which the resurrection took place. When we can trace 
a commemorative institution back to the very time of 
the event commemorated, as in the present case, it 
becomes a most powerful proof of the event. 

We may now proceed to look at some of the hypo- 
theses suggested by opponents to explain away this to 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 241 


them very troublesome fact of Christ’s resurrection. 
We need only to mention the earliest of these methods, 
It was that adopted by the priests, as recorded in 
Matthew, viz. that the disciples stole away the body 
by night. The text which records it also refutes it, by 
declaring that it was, and was known to be, a device for 
explaining away a most damaging truth. Furthermore, 
if the disciples stole the body, they must have known 
that Christ remained dead, and saw corruption. But 
this supposition, in view of their conduct afterwards, is 
utterly incredible, and may be at once dismissed. 
Another hypothesis which has been propounded is, 
that Christ was never really dead; that He only fell 
into a temporary swoon through suffering and the loss 
of blood; and that in course of time animation was 
restored, perhaps through the influence of the fragrant 
spices. But in view of this, what are we to make of the 
great wound in His side from which the blood and 
water flowed? What are we to make of the fact that 
the Roman soldiers, who had some experience in such 
matters, and those who took part in His burial, clearly 
regarded Him as dead? What are we to make of the 
statements of the New Testament, which everywhere 
regards His death as a most certain fact? Also, what 
became of Jesus after He recovered from the swoon? 
Did He hide Himself from His disciples and retire to 


some desert cave? Did He live and die in utter 
Q 


242 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


obscurity, and quietly allow His disciples to go on 
preaching the great lie of the resurrection, and to suffer 
martyrdom for it? Surely this also must be utterly 
incredible. 

In view of the above hypothesis, we may also well ask 
how we are to explain the many recorded appearances. 
They must have been fatal to the belief in a true resur- 
rection ; for the appearance of a poor, feeble, wounded, 
chastly man never could be mistaken for a triumphant 
resurrection from the dead. But perhaps we cannot do 
better than let Strauss sweep away this hypothesis in 
his usual trenchant way: ‘It is impossible that a being 
who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept 
about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who 
required bandaging, strengthening, and nursing, and 
who yet at last yielded to His sufferings, could have 
given to the disciples the impression that He was a 
conqueror over death and the. grave, the Prince of 
Life, an impression which lay at the basis of their 
future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have 
weakened the impression which He had made upon 
them in life and in death, but could by no possibility 
have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated 


their reverence into worship.’ * 


1 New Life of Jesus, vol. i. p. 412. Compare a passage of equal vigour 
and to the same effect in Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. iil. p. 576 ; 
and Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 339. 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 243 


There yet remains the third, and for the present 
the favourite explanation, namely, that by means of 
spectral illusions. It is known by the name of the 
‘vision hypothesis.’ That is, the appearances of the risen 
Lord were not real objective appearances, They were 
spectral illusions, mere inward visions, having their seat 
in morbid nerves, and souls full of sorrow, of eager 
desire, of enthusiasm and expectation. This is the view 
adopted by Strauss, Renan, and the author of Super- 
natural Religion. It is, however, more especially Renan 
who has brought it into notice in our country. Accord- 
ing to him, it is mainly to the love, the strong imagina- 
tion, and peculiar nervous system of Mary of Magdala 
that we owe the resurrection. She had a spectral vision 
of the Lord, and from that illusion arose the myth of 
the resurrection. ‘Divine power of love!’ he exclaims 
in a way quite characteristic, ‘sacred moments, when 
the passion of a woman under hallucination (ane 
hallucinée) gives to the world a God restored from the 
dead !’1 

But very slight reflection will enable any one to see 
that this view is quite as absurd and untenable as either 
of the preceding. If there had been only one appear- 
ance, and that to Mary Magdalene, it might not have 
seemed so unreasonable ; although, of course, there 
would still remain the certain fact of the open and 


* Vie de Jésus, p. 434, 12th edition, 


244 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


empty grave to be explained. But the multitude and 
variety of the witnesses, and the number and the cir- 
cumstances of the appearances, place this explanation 
beyond the bounds of all probability. The apostles 
and the early disciples were not all crazy, or men of 
feeble and diseased nerves, the kind of subjects for 
seeing spectres and illusions. Furthermore, they do not 
appear to have had any expectation of the resurrection, | 
and were not looking for it in the least. They were 
utterly surprised by the fact, and did not believe in it 
until they were overwhelmed with the evidence. They 
were not therefore in a state predisposing them to 
see such visions. In any case, spectral illusions are 
extremely rare occurrences, and it is infinitely more 
rare that the very same spectral illusion should occur to 
different individuals. But what have we here? We 
have the same form appearing to men of different 
temperaments and in perfect health, which is not the 
case with spectral illusions. We have the risen Lord 
appearing at different times, and in very different parts 
of the country, which is not the case with mere illusions. 
We have Him appearing not to one or two merely, but 
to groups of ten or eleven, and even to a company of 
more than five hundred, which is not the case with 
spectral illusions. We see Him not only appearing, 
but even being touched and held fast, which is not the 
case with mere illusions. We see Him not only appear- 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 245 


ing to the disciples, but holding long conversations with 
them, speaking and being spoken to, and surely that is 
not the manner of spectral illusions. Why also did 
these visions cease at the end of forty days, and not 
reappear at the excitement of the first Pentecost? It 
is not necessary to proceed further. Such spectral 
illusions as this hypothesis requires are plainly con- 
trary to all ‘experience, and utterly inadequate to 
explain the facts. The very desperateness of the hypo- 
thesis is one of the best proofs that the reported facts 
are real facts. In short, the only method of explanation, 
which is simple with all the simplicity of the truth, 
is that which accepts the resurrection as a certain fact.! 
We now conclude our present study. And what is 
the natural outcome of the whole? It is that the 
resurrection of our Lord is an historical reality. The 
Church is not founded on a spectral illusion, still less on 
deception or a deliberate lie, but on a fact, the fact 
of Christ’s resurrection. And who does not see at a 
glance the supreme importance and wide sweep of this 
conclusion? It gives us new reasons for believing 
in God, proving His existence as a free Person above 
and behind nature; for ‘He raised Him up from the 
dead, so that our faith and hope might be in God. 
It proves the divine commission of the Lord: He was 
‘declared to be the Son of God with power, by the 
* See Appendix, Note XIV. 


246 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


resurrection from the dead.’ It proves that His pro- 
pitiatory work was perfect, and that God fully accepted 
it as such. It is the divine seal set upon all His teach- 
ing, so that we may now accept His revelations of truth 
above the reach of human reason as being fully authorita- 
tive and certain. It affords the highest assurance which 
we could possibly conceive that He will carry on the 
work of salvation to completion, both in the individual 
and in the world: ‘For if when we were enemies we were 
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, 
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” It is 
a proof that He ‘hath abolished death,’ and ‘destroyed 
him that hath the power of death.’ It is a pledge of a 
coming judgment-day, when Christ will sit as Judge: 
for of this ‘God hath given assurance unto all men, in 
that He hath raised Him from the dead.’ It is a proof 
and earnest of our own resurrection to a glorious 
immortality ; for ‘Christ is risen from the dead, and 
become the first-fruits of them that slept.’ Yes, when 
the stone was roiled from His sepulchre, the crushing 
weight of hopeless despair was rolled from the bosom 
of humanity. When the resurrection morning broke, 
there dawned a day of brighter hope, of purer life, of 
sweeter light upon the benighted world. When the 
sepulchre was opened, it proved a fountain whence a 
stream of heavenly grace and blessing flowed forth for 
the quickening, refreshing, and cleansing of a dead, 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 247 


and sad, and sinful world. That stream has flowed on, 
the strong central artery of the world’s history, during 
the eighteen Christian centuries ; it is flowing on in the 
present day; and, as we look down the future, we see 
it still flowing on from age to age, until at last, far off 
on the dim horizon, where the earth and heaven seem 
to meet in a circle of uncreated light, we behold it 
blending with the eternal ocean. Looking, then, into 
this empty grave, we may well take up the doxology 
of Peter: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant 
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an 
inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth 
not away.’ 


D6. 


THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY FROM THE 
UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 


No one can deny that the results produced by Christ 
in history have been of the most extraordinary kind. 
He is the fountainhead from which not merely the 
Church, but all the river of modern history has flowed. 
He was at once the solvent which silently disintegrated 
the mighty power of ancient religion and civilisation, 
and the constructive spiritual force which built up a 
new civilisation and religious life. And, indeed, it is 
not merely Christianity and modern civilisation which 
owe their origin to Christ, but even such an anta- 
gonistic system as Mohammedanism as well; for if 
Christianity and the Bible had not previously existed, 
it is certain that Mohammedanism would never have 
appeared. 

But in all this it is evident, that it is Christ Himself 
who is the living heart, the fountain of spiritual power 
and energy. The current of modern Christian history 
received its original impulse directly from Him. If 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 249 


we think of those men who throughout the ages have 
been the powerful actors and the leading forces therein, 
we may see at once that it was from Him they drew 
their inspiration. These men were such as Paul and 
John, Athanasius and Augustine, Luther and Knox, 
not to mention hundreds of less famous names. But 
these men were and would have been nothing without 
Christ. It was not they, but Christ in them. Their 
torches were kindled at the heaven-descended fire that 
burned in Him, and but for Him would have remained 
for ever dark. At the very first sight, we see that there 
is evidently something quite unique and extraordinary 
in Christ. 

Looking at the matter in another aspect, we readily 
see that Christ stands to Christianity in a very different 
relation from that in which the founder of a philosophy 
stands to his system. We may have a very complete 
knowledge of the systems of Aristotle or Epicurus, of 
Kant or Hegel, of Reid or Herbert Spencer, without 
any reference whatever to the person and character of 
their respective authors. But we cannot so separate 
between Christ and Christianity. In fact, Christ is 
Christianity. Every doctrine in it of fundamental 
importance runs up into Him and ends in Him. If 
we speak of the doctrine of sin, it was that dark fact 
that brought Him into the world and to the cross ; if 
of the Trinity, it is around His person that the doctrine 


250 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


of the Trinity has always turned; if of atonement, He 
is the sacrifice. If we think of Christian faith, He is 
the explicit object of it; if of justification, He is the 
sround of it; if of sanctification, He is both the pattern 
of it and the source of all sanctifying power. If we 
speak of the resurrection, He is the Resurrection and 
the Life; if of judgment, He is the divinely-appointed 
Judge ; if of heaven, it is because He lives there that 
His people live there also. As in some of the old 
ecclesiastical cities of the Continent, the chief streets 
all lead up to the cathedral at the centre, so all the 
chief doctrines of Christianity lead up to Christ, and 
find their centre of system and order in Him. He is 
the Christian system, the living centre in which all 
things in it consist. We can no more separate Christ 
from Christianity, than we can separate the soul from 
the body without producing instantaneous death. 
Nothing shows more convincingly that the person- 
ality of Jesus is felt to be something wonderful, than 
the many attempts which are constantly made by 
unbelievers to account for it on mere natural prin- 
ciples. They feel instinctively that it is a terrible 
stumbling-block to them, and that they must explain 
it away if their systems are ever to succeed. They 
are fain to ask with Pilate of old, ‘What shall we do 
with Jesus, who is called Christ?’ Hence they weary 
themselves with the vain problem, how they may best 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 251 


dissolve Him into mythic haze, or resolve Him into 
natural elements. But they have not yet succeeded, 
and they themselves feel that they have not succeeded. 
For no sooner has one come forward with his explana- 
tion, than brother unbelievers show themselves to be 
conscious that it is not quite satisfactory. Accordingly, 
they set themselves anew to the task, only to meet 
with a similar fate. Paulus explains Jesus on the 
grounds of the old rationalism ; the miracles were only 
natural events, but mistaken as miraculous through the 
stupidity of the apostles. Strauss arises and demolishes 
Paulus, and explains Christ by the hypothesis of myths. 
Baur, and especially his more extreme followers, prefer 
to explain Him by modified forgery. Renan finds his 
explanation in the legendary, not without a decided 
element of intrigue and intentional deception on the 
part of Christ. This course of action shows that even 
the opponents of Christianity consciously feel that the 
stone of stumbling has not yet been removed. They 
rush against the Rock of Ages at the risk of dashing 
themselves to pieces upon its eternal adamant: but it 
remains firm and immovable as ever,— 
* As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; 


Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.’ 


In considering the person and character of Jesus, we 


252 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


are confined mainly to the four Gospels as the source 
of our materials. It is held, indeed, by some that the 
Christ of the three so-called Synoptics, Matthew, Mark, 
and Luke, is quite a different person from the Christ 
of John. That there is a difference between the por- 
traits is true. It is not, however, the difference between 
two distinct persons, but only between two different 
views of the same person. The Synoptists show us 
Jesus teaching among the peasants of Galilee; John, 
the same Jesus discussing with the priests, rabbis, and 
learned Jews of Jerusalem. The former show us Jesus 
in His more public, outward life; the latter, largely, 
Jesus in His inner life and intercourse with His 
disciples, and revealing the higher truths of faith. 
The former show us Jesus speaking mainly in the 
sunshine ; John shows us Jesus speaking when He is 
already under the shadow of the cross, and in the 
strange other-world light of His eventide. ‘The Christ 
of the fourth Gospel is the Word of God; but He 
is still the Son of man. He utters no Sermon on the 
Mount ; but still He preaches the kingdom of heaven. 
The sheep scattered abroad find in Him still the Good 
Shepherd. There is no exorcism, but the prince of 
this world is cast out. There is no transfiguration, 
but His glory is throughout beheld; no agony in the 
garden, but His soul is troubled. Mary and Martha 
reappear, but attended by Lazarus. He does not say, 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 253 


“This is My body,” but He gives His flesh to eat ; and 
words as heavenly and in fuller measure soothe the 
parting meal. He has the same night watches. He 
sheds the same tears. He walks the same waters, and 
ascends up where He was before. His prayer in all the 
Gospels is intercession—in the last most prolonged and 
tender. He returns from the grave to breathe the Holy 
Ghost, and to connect that name with the Father’s and 
His own. His presence is the final hope of the earlier 
Gospels; His coming, of the last; and the closing 
charge but repeats all former calls, “Follow thou 
Mesa 

Perhaps the difference between the Synoptics and 
John may have some light cast upon it by an example. 
There was no more original and lofty character in 
ancient Greece than Socrates, none that at a distance 
more resembled Christ. We have two portraits of him 
preserved to us, one by Xenophon, and another by 
Plato, and these not a little different the one from 
the other. On the ground of this difference some 
have rejected one or even both as fictitious, just as 
some critics have done with the portraits of Christ in 
the Gospels. But this is acknowledged by the ablest 
thinkers to be a mistake; and it is rightly held that 
the portraits are of the same real man, only from 


1 Principal Cairns, Christ the Central Evidence of Christianity, jaye Cor 
Cf. Row, The Jesus of the Evangelists, c. xii. 


254 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


different points of view. Xenophon, the clear, practical, 
objective narrator, gives us one view, in which he photo- 
graphs what suited his taste and stuck to his mind, 
while he leaves out or even misapprehends the greater 
heights and depths in his master. Plato again, a man 
of a much more exalted type, presents boldly and 
abundantly those higher and deeper reaches of the 
character and teaching of Socrates which fell in with 
his philosophic taste and mind, to the exclusion largely 
of more superficial elements and traits. Sometimes 
he even interfuses his own personality with that of 
Socrates in such a degree, that Plato and Socrates 
imperceptibly blend in thought and style of language. 
Yet, after all, the representations of Xenophon and 
Plato are only two different aspects, the outer and 
the inner, of a rich and varied personality, each author 
having treasured up that for which he had a special 
receptivity. And so is it in great measure with the 
Jesus of the Gospels. The two representations are the 
outer and the inner, the simpler and the deeper aspects 
of the character and teaching of Jesus, with here and 
there innumerable points of contact between them, 
which show that the two streams ever and anon run 
braided into one another, and are therefore one and 
the self-same river of life.! 

Now the Gospels present to us Jesus as unique in 


* See Appendix, Note XV. 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 255 


His sinlessness, While the Old Testament and the 
New alike represent all men as tainted with sin and 
guilty of sinful acts, the Gospels represent Jesus as the 
Holy One of God. They tell us that He explicitly 
claimed to be sinless. ‘I am the Truth;’ ‘Which of 
you, saith He, ‘convicteth Me of sin?’ And He not 
only made the claim, but His whole life and conduct 
were consistent with His claim. The Gospels contain 
no acknowledgment at any time of sin on the part of 
Jesus, and record no word of confession that ever 
escaped His lips. His friends who knew Him best, and 
His enemies who hated Him most, alike unite in their 
testimony to His stainless character. Peter, a constant, 
ciose, and favoured eye-witness, declares that He was 
‘without blemish and without spot, that ‘He did no 
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.’ Pilate and 
Herod find no fault in Him, and alike declare Him 
innocent. The Jews never bring forward any charge 
of sin or wrong-doing against Him, not even at His 
trial. The very traitor himself, the miserable Judas, 
who no doubt would have been glad to soothe his con- 
science with the excuse that Jesus was just a sinner like 
other men, and deserved to die for His pretensions, de- 
clared, ‘I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent 
blood, and went and hanged himself. The Gospels, 
like the Epistles, represent Jesus as ‘holy, harmless, 
undefiled, and separate from sinners.’ 


256 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


But the idea of a sinless man was something quite 
new and uncommon among the Jews, and not likely to 
have occurred to a forger. The Old Testament contains 
the strongest expressions in regard to the universal sinful- 
ness of man: ‘There is not a just man upon the earth, 
that doeth good and sinneth not.’ The doctrine of the 
New Testament is the very same. It takes up and 
repeats the saying of the Old Testament, ‘There is none . 
righteous, no, not one,’ and adds its own strong state- 
ment thereto, ‘All have sinned, and come short of the 
glory of God.’ From this we see that the idea ofa sinless 
man was quite foreign to Jewish modes of thought, and 
not likely to have been ventured on by a mere forger. 

But what is of far more importance, is the fact that 
the Gospels do not merely affirm Jesus to be sinless, 
but consistently depict Him as always living, speaking, 
and acting as the sinless One. This is just the rock on 
which the forger would have gone to pieces. It was easy 
to declare Jesus sinless, but a very different and difficult 
thing to represent Him naturally all through as leading 
a sinless life. Yet this is exactly what we find in the 
Gospels. They exhibit to us the real living Jesus. 
They show Him to us in all departments of life: in 
public and in private; in quiet, and in sudden and 
trying crises ; in the midst of applause and success, and 
in the midst of bitter opposition and persecution ; in the 
enjoyment of social intercourse and friendship; in the 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 257 


agonies of Gethsemane and the cross; in short, in all 
conceivable circumstances. Yet in them all, He is still 
the same sinless One. He is never overtaken in a fault, 
never loses His self- possession for a moment, ever 
maintains the most complete equilibrium and presence 
of mind. Yea, His self-possession and stable holiness 
only shine out more clearly as the circumstances are 
more trying, just as the stars shine out most distinctly 
in proportion as the night is dark. 

Without condescending to further details, it may be 
well to look for a little at the way in which He faced 
and went through death. It was altogether wonderful 
and strange. He went on towards it knowingly, under 
an awful inward impulse ; so awful that His very 
manner, when He was consciously under it, filled the 
disciples with fear. When He set His face stedfastly 
to go to Jerusalem to suffer, ‘they were amazed, and, as 
they followed Him, they were sore afraid” It is clear 
that He might have escaped His death, humanly speak- 
ing, at any moment up to the last. There was no out- 
ward necessity compelling Him to go up to Jerusalem, 
or, once there, to remain there; no necessity for con- 
tinuing in the garden of Gethsemane, or for surrendering 
Himself to Judas and his band. It was all a matter of 
pure free-will on His part. Then what divine dignity 
and calm self-possession during all His unrighteous and 


insulting trial! What divine self- forgetfulness and 
R 


258 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


compassion as He toils under the weight of the cross 
along the way to Calvary !—‘ Daughters of Jerusalem, 
weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your 
children.’ What divine self-forgetfulness and com- 
passion even in the agonies of the cross! Though in 
the intensest suffering, He thinks of all others before 
Himself ; of them first, and of Himself last of all. He 
prays for His murderers: ‘ Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do.’ He answers the prayer 
of the penitent thief: ‘Verily I say unto thee, To-day 
shalt thou be with Me in paradise.’ He tenderly makes 
provision for His widowed mother, as He says to John, 
‘Behold thy mother. Only after His murderers, the 
penitent malefactor, and His mother, does He think of 
Himself, and say, ‘I thirst: it is finished; Father, into 
Thy hands I commend My spirit.’ Surely such a death 
is not after the manner of men; and as we reverently 
behold afar off, we may well confess with the centurion, 
‘Truly this was the Son of Ged. ? 

In short, when we compare Jesus with the ordinary 
sons of men, even when ennobled and sanctified by 
the Spirit of God, we find that He gathers up into Him- 
self, as into a perfect flower, all the moral beauty and 
fragrance that can adorn humanity. In Him we find 
meekness greater than that of Moses, meekness that 
never fails ; firmness greater than that of Elijah, a firm- 

1 See Appendix, Note XVI. 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST, 259 


ness that never falters; a nature more kingly than that 
of David, and which never stoops to a single act of 
meanness ; wisdom greater than that of Solomon, a 
wisdom never at fault; patience greater than that of 
Job, a patience that never murmurs; a zeal and an 
activity which were greater than those of Paul; and a 
love most pure and lofty, of which that of John was but 
the shadow. Every grace is found in Him in its own 
proper place and setting, every grace at its best and 
fairest, every grace without a flaw. ! | 

In thorough keeping with His moral perfection, we 
can also see at once that the personality of Christ is one 
of transcendent power. Nothing shows its singular 
power more overwhelmingly than the effect which it 
produced upon His apostles. They were very ordinary 
men, humble fishermen for the most part, who but for 
Him would have lived and died utterly unknown. It 
was not they who made Jesus, but Jesus who made 
them what they afterwards became. It was He who 
awakened, quickened, ennobled, transfigured their com- 
mon earthly natures. He put into them a new life, was 
indeed the very life of their life. He inspired them with 
an all-consuming love and devotion to Himself, so that 
they were willing to live, to work, to die for Him, even 
‘rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His 


1 See Appendix, Note XVII.; cf. Kennedy, Christian Evidences, Part 
Bic. ii. 


260 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


name.’ It was He who delivered them from their carnal 
views, and enabled them to rise up to the conception of 
an intensely spiritual religion and kingdom of God. He 
freed them from the galling chains of a proud and 
narrow Judaism, and possessed them with the sublime 
idea of a universal religion and a holy brotherhood of 
man. He inspired them with His own bravery and 
firmness, so that they who were previously timid and 
feeble were able to suffer persecution, to stand un- 
daunted before kings and magistrates, and to face a 
martyr’s death with a heroic dignity hitherto unknown. 
He filled them with that irrepressible and inexhaustible 
energy which made them known as the men who turned 
the world upside down, and enabled them to inaugurate 
the most wonderful revolution and movement that the 
world has ever seen. When we consider that He pro- 
duced such marvellous effects on such commonplace 
materials, and made out of them such noble and power- 
ful personalities, we must see herein a proof of the 
supreme power of Christ’s own personality. ‘The faith, 
the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first generation of 
Christians can be explained only by supposing at the 
origin of the movement a man of colossal proportions ;’! 
yea, One who is more than man. 

When we pass from His character and person to 
His teaching, we perceive the same uniqueness and 


1 Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. 448. 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 261 


originality. We observe this in the very manner of it. 
To a large degree it assumes the outward form of the 
parable. It is not meant that Jesus was the first and 
only teacher who used the parable, for we have some 
specimens in the Old Testament and the Talmud ; but 
He is the one great Teacher who made a supreme use 
of this method. Further, and looking a little more 
deeply into His manner, He teaches not by reasoning 
out His truths from previous premises, as is the case 
with man. He does not gather up facts and evidence 
by laborious study, and then by ordinary processes of 
logic draw His conclusions from them. He sees and 
knows the truth directly and intuitively. He does not 
reason it out, He reveals it. He teaches by direct and 
authoritative revelation : ‘ Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
We speak that We do know, and testify that We have 
seen.’ He speaks directly to heart and’ conscience, 
as one who knows exactly what is the state of each 
individual man. He frequently replies even to the 
unuttered thoughts, doubts, and feelings of the hearer 
—a fact which explains much of the difficulty and 
many of the sudden transitions that we have in His 
utterances. ‘He taught as one having authority, and 
not as the scribes,’ 

Another grand characteristic of Christ as a teacher, 
was the fact that He aimed at the inmost soul. His 
great and immediate aim was to reach the essential 


262 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


man, and to implant there the potent germ of a new 
principle and life. This method was not indeed alto- 
gether peculiar or original, for it had been largely the 
method followed by the ancient prophets. But it was 
almost if not entirely unique in that age in Palestine— 
an age in which religion had crystallized into external, 
punctilious ritualism. He alone had the divine origin- 
ality, the strength and the courage, to break through 
the method of mere ritualism, to break away from it 
and to break it up. He taught men that religion was 
not merely an outward church etiquette or convention- 
ality, but an intensely inward, real thing of the heart 
and spirit. The man whose religion is a matter of mere 
rites and ceremonies is like the whited sepulchre, whose 
exterior may be beautiful enough, but which within 
may be full of rottenness and dead men’s bones. There 
must be a new heart within; a man must be born not 
merely of water, but of the Spirit, if he is ever to enter 
into the kingdom of God. 

When we come to the material of His teaching, we 
see no less clearly His divine originality. To exhibit 
this in full, however, would be to give a statement of 
all the characteristic doctrines of the Christian system. 
It will be enough to flash the fact upon the mind if we 
touch upon a few main points. We see this originality 
in His revelation of God. He revealed Him as Father, 
as well as King. By this is not meant Father in the 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 263 


general sense of being the origin of our existence, or as 
a mere title of respect, which was almost all that the 
Greeks and the Romans meant when they spoke of 
Zeus under this name. We mean Father in the highest 
sense, all that the ideal Father ought to be, raising us 
as He does to the status, and conferring on us the 
privileges of sons, both here and hereafter. He reveals 
Him as a God of mercy and love, as well as a God 
of justice and judgment. He teaches the doctrine of 
regeneration by the Spirit, and gratuitous justification 
on the ground of His own blood. He teaches that 
personal faith in Himself is the saving state of the soul 
—that true faith which identifies the soul with Him, 
and contains within it ‘the potency and promise’ of 
all the Christian graces and virtues. When a man 
enters into this relationship to Him, then salvation is his 
that instant, full and free, as a gift of God. He declares 
love to be the ruling principle, the grand energetic 
motive power of the Christian life, and Himself as the 
incarnate law to be the rule and ideal of that life. The 
whole is fresh and original—fresh with all the freshness 
of the breezes that blow from the eternal hills; original 
with all the originality of God. Well might the people 
be ‘astonished at His doctrine.’ 

Another quite unique and unparalleled feature in the 
teaching of Christ, is the place which He gives to His 
death. It is, no doubt, true that He does not develop 


264 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the doctrine of His death as a sacrifice and propitiation 
to the same extent as His apostles do. This, of course, 
was to be expected, for His death had not yet taken 
place, and therefore the time had scarcely come for 
revealing the fulness of its significance. Nevertheless, 
He does assign an all-important and most singular 
place and power to His death. It was one grand object 
of His incarnation; He ‘came to give His life a ransom 
for many.’ It was a divine necessity: ‘the Son of man 
must be lifted up’ on the cross, His blood was a true 
atonement; it was ‘shed for many for the remission of 
sins. It sealed and ratified the covenant of redemption 
with God the Father: ‘This cup is the new covenant in 
My blood.’ His body and blood sacrificed in death, 
are, through the great truths and forces which underlie 
them, the life of the world: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of 
the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in 
you. Yea, His death is the sowing of the seed which 
is to spring up in the spiritual harvest of a glorious 
Church; He is the corn of wheat which falls into the 
ground and by dying brings forth much fruit. Then, 
to crown the whole, how unique, how significant the 
institution of the Supper—an institution which, beyond 
all contradiction, goes back to the time of Christ, and 
which was designed to represent and commemorate 
through all ages the supreme importance of His death! 
Again we see the unique originality of Christ when 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST, 265 


we contemplate the peculiar kingdom which He pur- 
posed to found and actually did found. He entered 
on His ministry, declaring it to be His mission to found 
a spiritual society or kingdom, which He called the 
kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. This was 
both His first and last message; for He refers to the 
same subject in His trial. By this expression He 
meant a kingdom which should have God as King, 
which should be founded on the truth, which should 
be governed by moral and spiritual laws, and exist 
for moral and spiritual ends. It was a kingdom not 
of this world, but one’ in which men were to unite for 
mutual help in moral and spiritual things, and for 
spreading the reign of truth and righteousness through- 
out the world. It was a kingdom which was to inter- 
penetrate all earthly kingdoms like a heavenly leaven, 
as the life permeates the body, or as the summer 
warmth and fragrance are diffused throughout the air. 
It was a kingdom of which the world and time are only 
an outlying province, and heaven and eternity the true 
home-country and capital. Now, this was an entirely 
new and original idea. It was not a mere duplicate 
of the ancient Jewish theocracy. At the most it was 
only related to that as the spirit of the glorified saint 
is to his earthly body. It was in direct antagonism 
to the gross worldly views of the Messianic kingdom 
entertained by the Jews of that age, who looked for a 


266 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


kingdom after the type of imperial Rome rather than 
the New Jerusalem. It was a conception which had 
never dawned upon the Greek or Roman mind, even 
in its highest flights of speculation. There can be no 
doubt that the kingdom of God as taught by Christ 
was a new and original idea in the world, and, like 
the holy city in the vision of John, it descended from 
God out of heaven. 3 

We see also the originality of Christ in the univer- 
sality of His purpose. Beyond all cavil, His aim was to 
unite all mankind as members or brothers on equal 
terms in His great spiritual kingdom. It mattered not 
to what people or rank they belonged. Whether they 
were white or black, cultured or uncultured, rich or poor, 
Pharisee or Sadducee, publican or sinner, bond or free,— 
all were equally welcome to citizenship in His kingdom, 
and to its privileges both here and hereafter. He 
required His disciples, no doubt, to begin the spiritual 
conquest of the world at Jerusalem ; but they were to 
carry the banner of the cross to Samaria and the ends 
of the earth. The field was the world, and they were to 
go into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature. And in this universal purpose we have some- 
thing sublimely new. It was far beyond the conception 
of the contemporary Jews, who regarded the Gentiles as 
dogs, as unclean animals, with whom they would not 
even so much as eat. It was in direct contradiction 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 267 


to the spirit of the Greek, who looked upon all other 
nations in a manner as barbarians. It was beyond even 
the farthest stretch of Roman thought ; for the Roman 
citizen fondly regarded himself as a very superior being 
compared with the conquered nations who did homage 
to the imperial senate and people. Yet here we havea 
peasant from the mountains of Galilee, into whose native 
glens the tide of the world’s great ocean had never 
flowed, who had scarcely heard its confused roar even 
from afar, coming forward at once with this universal, 
world-wide conception fully matured! Surely this is 
something grandly original and strange. 

Another very peculiar feature in Christ’s plan is 
the fact that He puts Himself forward as the corner- 
stone of this spiritual temple, the very heart and centre 
of this new body. Men were to be admitted to its 
membership, not by any adherence to an abstract creed 
or code of rules, but by personal trust in Christ and 
loyalty to Him. He knew the weakness and need of 
man, knew that nothing reaches and takes his heart 
like real, brotherly humanity. While men have no 
enthusiasm for a dry code of laws, however excellent, 
perhaps even shrink from it, they are powerfully drawn 
by the mystic cords of human sympathy, and deep, 
tragic, loving self-sacrifice. By His divine wisdom He 
at once transcended that fatal weakness of all Greek and 
Roman philosophy—the want of an incarnation of God’s 


268 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


law and will in a loving, pure, sympathizing life, and its 
culmination in a tragic, self-sacrificing death of heroic 
martyrdom. Having provided in Himself a powerful 
centre of spiritual attraction and energy, He put Him- 
self forward with the astounding claim that men should 
rest themselves on Him as the one Saviour, build 
themselves upon Him as the one Foundation, and join 
themselves to Him as the one Head and Centre of the 
new spiritual body or society. In short, loyalty to Him- 
self was the condition of membership in His kingdom— 
a feature in which He totally differed from all ancient 
philosophers. 

We sce not less clearly the wonderful originality of 
His plan, when we consider the special means which He 
adopted to bring men into His kingdom. The weapons 
of His warfare were not carnal. He did not use the 
power of mere physical omnipotence to force them in, 
He did not use the arts of human diplomacy or intrigue. 
He did not bribe men by the hope of wealth and power 
and fame. Still less did He seduce them by pandering 
to their lower tastes. He did not even take the method 
of beating down men’s reason by crushing argument. 
He took a much more new and wonderful and Godlike 
way. It was the method of subduing men’s Opposition 
and melting their hearts by love. He knew that if any 
power could accomplish this and make them truly 
willing, it would be the power of self-sacrificing love, 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 269 


He shows this love for men in all His life, and especially 
in His suffering for them on the cross. He shows this 
love to them even when dead in trespasses and sins, and 
ignorantly and thoughtlessly treading Him under foot. 
He shows it to them to the very uttermost. This love 
was that mighty power by which He sought to break 
down, and does break down, yea, even melt, the hard 
and stony heart. The heart which can resist arguments 
and threats and physical pain, and even grow harder 
under them, yields to love. He conquers by the power 
of His love, especially as expressed and exhibited upon 
the cross, and draws and binds the heart of man to Him 
by its everlasting bonds. His kingdom is the only 
great kingdom or society in the world whose grand 
secret is the power of pure, self-sacrificing love; and 
surely here again we have something divinely new and 
strange. 

Once more, it is worthy of notice that Jesus came 
forth from His mountain home in Galilee, certainly 
from His temptation in the wilderness, with the idea of 
His plan complete. It is extremely rare to find a man 
who appears and plays a large part in the scene of 
history, whose plan is perfect from the very first, and 
followed out without alteration. Still more rare is this 
when the plan is something new and original ; and most 
rare of all, when it meets with much opposition on every 
side. But all this was the case with Jesus. Plainly 


270 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


He came forth from the wilderness with His plan 
finished and fixed. Just as plainly He adhered to it all 
His life through ; and not less plainly did He adhere to 
it in His death. His life was a straight line through 
the world leading up to the cross, and through the cross 
and the darkness of death to the establishment of His 
spiritual kingdom. How different from the lives of men 
in general, which rather resemble the motion of the 
empty boat upon a troubled sea than the straight path- 
way of a firm purpose leading up to a fixed and glorious 
termination ! 

Let it be clearly noticed also, that all these unique 
and original elements are not heaped up together 
about Christ in a heterogeneous mass. They unite 
and harmonize in Him in a real personality and life. 
Indeed, one of the grand peculiarities of Jesus is just 
the fact that in Him the most opposite virtues are not 
merely present, but blend into an harmonious and well- 
balanced whole. In Him we have the utmost strength 
united with the utmost gentleness; the extreme of 
firmness with the extreme of tenderness ; the loftiest 
ideal with the intensest practicalness. He hasa hand so 
powerful that it can wield the mightiest worlds, and yet 
so gentle that it can bind up the wounds of the broken 
heart. In Him we see the purest truth going hand in 
hand with the purest love, the highest justice glorified 
by the sweet light of the highest mercy. In Him the 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 271 


closest unity with God co-exists harmoniously with the 
utmost sympathy with sinful, sorrowing man. While 
He follows on His pathway straight to His sublime aim 
amid the strain of opposition and persecution, He has 
yet time to notice the flower by the wayside, to take up 
the children in His arms and bless them. He puts 
forward claims the most extraordinary, such as would 
be ridiculous and blasphemous in the mouth of any 
mere man, and yet His is clearly the most modest and 
humble of natures. There is something in Him that 
overawes the hypocrite and hardened sinner; some- 
thing that draws to Him the children, the penitent, 
and broken-hearted. In Him mercy and truth meet 
together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. Just 
as the different colours seen in the rainbow unite to 
form the pure, colourless light; so.the different virtues 
and graces in the character of Christ blend harmoniously 
together to give us the pure, colourless light of perfect 
holiness. His personality is not only real and rich, but 
of the most harmonious balance and blending. 

In view of what we have seen, it is clear that we 
cannot possibly regard the personality of Christ to be 
the evolution of merely natural forces and ordinary 
historical elements. Every attempt to explain Him 
satisfactorily by mere natural evolution has hitherto 
been baffled. No chemistry has ever yet succeeded in 
analysing Him into mere earthly elements. What is 


* 


272 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


true of man is infinitely more so of the Son of man. 
Materialists may resolve the human body into its com- 
ponent parts, so much oxygen, so much hydrogen, so 
much nitrogen, so much carbon, so much lime, so much 
phosphorus, and the like. They may present us with 
the mixture all right in regard to weight and measure ; 
and as we look at the heap, they may triumphantly say, 
‘There is the man; that is the whole; and there is no 
mystery about it.” But a thousand times, No. The life 
is wanting, the co-ordinating soul, the man. The heap 
of dust is not even a human body. And just as no 
mere earthly chemistry can account for man, much less 
can it do so for Christ. No theory of mere natural 
evolution can explain Him; He refuses to be expressed 
by any mere earthly equation. Unbelieving critics may 
try to explain Him by showing that there is in Him 
so much drawn from Jewish monotheism and morality ; 
so much from Greek culture and sunshine; so much of 
the universal, suggested by the world-wide empire of 
Rome, and the like. They think that when they have said 
so much they have explained Him away, and deprived 
Him of all title to ‘the Wonderful.’ But after all, the 
grand and divine personality stands up before us as un- 
solved and unexplained as ever, baffling the utmost efforts 
of human ingenuity to analyse Him into mere natural 
elements, or account for Him by mere natural evolution.! 


* Comp. Principal Rainy, as quoted in Stalker’s Life of Christ, p. 141. 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 273 


But may not this wonderful personality be an utter 
fiction and forgery? The supposition, as indeed we 
have already seen, is inadmissible. It is clearly not a 
fiction, but history. Had it been a fiction, it must have 
been the production of one great mind; but instead of 
this, we see it represented by different writers of very 
different types, all of whom contribute some traits which 
are distinct but which nevertheless harmonize into one 
whole. Besides, the humble ‘followers of Jesus were 
quite unable of themselves to devise, and most mani- 
festly unable to carry out, such a fiction. It would 
have required a greater genius than Scott or Shake- 
speare to do so, and there was no Scott or Shakespeare 
there. ‘It is more inconceivable, says Rousseau, ‘that 
several men should have united to forge the gospel, than 
that a single person should have furnished the subject 
of it. It has marks of truth so great, so striking, so 
utterly inimitable, that the inventor of it would be more 
astounding than the hero,’* ‘It takes a Newton to forge 
a Newton,’ says Parker. ‘What man could have fabri- 
cated a Jesus? None but a Jesus.’* ‘Who among His 
disciples, says J. ‘S. Mill, ‘or among their early 
proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed 
to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed 


1 Emile, Livre iv. p-. 370, (Firmin-Didot). 
2 Quoted by Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, p. 279 (Strahan, 
1861). 
‘S 


274 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee; 
as certainly not St. Paul, .. . still less the early Chris- 
tian writers.’! We must give up the idea of forgery and 
fiction as utterly untenable. 

But if it is not a fiction, then the perfect moral cha- 
racter of Christ must force us to the conclusion that His 
claims were thoroughly well founded. He must be all 
that He really claimed to be, for any other supposition 
is morally impossible. When He who is the truth, who 
everlastingly inculcates truthfulness, and who was the 
very essence of humility, claims to be from heaven, the 
Son of God, the divinely-commissioned Messiah, pos- 
sessed of all power in heaven and in earth, surely His 
claim must be well founded. Surely the supposition 
of deliberate deception is utterly impossible and incon- 
ceivable. Is it conceivable that One whose moral cha- 
racter is the highest the world has ever seen, even the 
opponents of Christianity being judges, should have 
lived a life of thoroughgoing and uninterrupted decep- 
tion? Is it conceivable that a deceiver would have 
planned and proclaimed and established a system of 
such pure, high, uncompromising morality as we have 
in the teaching of Christ? Is it conceivable that He 
should have practised all manner of intense deceit and 
hypocrisy in order to drive deceit and hypocrisy and sin 
in every form from the face of the earth for ever? If 


1 Three Essays, p. 253. 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST. 275 


so, then the point of Schwab’s epigram! must be true, 
and Jesus, throughout the Christian ages, must have 
been driving out the devil through Beelzebub. But it 
cannot be. - Nothing can act habitually in a way directly 
contrary to its essential nature. Heat cannot freeze 
water, nor gravitation make the stone ascend, nor can a 
man of perfect truth live a life of habitual deceit and 
hypocrisy. The tree is known by its fruit. In short, 
the unquestionable moral excellence of Christ carries 
with it that He was all that He really claimed to be. 
We would very particularly emphasize the fact, even 
at the risk of repetition, that the unique personality and 
character of Christ demand something more than the 
merely human to explain them. They point explicitly 
to the scriptural doctrine of His true divinity. For it 
cannot fairly be doubted that the Gospels and the 
Epistles alike represent Him as more than man, as, 
indeed, very God. It can scarcely be doubted that He 
Himself calmly claims to be divine—the Son of God 
in the highest sense; so that if not really divine, He 
must either be an impostor or a deluded enthusiast. 


1On the Tiibingen hypothesis in regard to the origin of the fourth 
Gospel :— 
* Hat dieses Buch, das ewige Wahrheit ist, 
Ein liigenhafter Gnostiker geschrieben, 
So hat seit tausend Jahren Jesus Christ 
Den Teufel durch Beelzebub vertrieben. 


See Schaff, Apostolic Christianity, vol. ii. Pp. 724. 


276 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


No other view, indeed, will carry us through the New 
Testament than that of His true divinity. It will not 
read intelligibly on the supposition that He is only a 
mere man. Even thoroughgoing Unitarians and un- 
believers are at times frank enough to admit this fact. 
‘The orthodox are right,’ says a leading American 
Unitarian, ‘in interpreting the Scriptures as they have 
done and are doing.’ And,as we have just said, the 
personality, character, life, influence of Christ harmonize 
with His real divinity, and demand it for their explana- 
tion. In contemplating them with thought and sym- 
pathy, we feel instinctively that they are just such a 
character, life, and influence as we could naturally 
suppose to belong to God incarnate. When we hear 
Jesus saying, ‘I and My Father are one,’ ‘He who hath 
seen Me hath seen the Father,’ and the like, we feel that 
there is a perfect harmony and consistency between His 
life and His claims. Apart from any array of separate 
proof texts, His character, life, and influence all alike 
lead us up to the doctrine of His divinity. We feel that 
Rousseau was right when he said, ‘ Yes, if the life and 
death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death 
of Jesus are those of a God.’ And if Christ is divine, 
then so is Christianity; for its heart and essence is 
Christ. 


+ Cf. even Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 178 (Popular 
Edition). 


THE UNIQUE PERSONALITY OF CHRIST, 277 


In Christ then, such is our conclusion, we have a 
truly supernatural personality. In the very fact of His 
perfect holiness itself we see this demonstrated. For 
perfect holiness is not a thing found in the sphere of 
nature. It is something that distinctly comes from 
above, it is supernatural in the highest sense. It is 
even a higher type of the supernatural than superhuman 
knowledge or power, the power of working physical 
miracles. It is higher than these, in proportion as the 
moral is higher than the merely intellectual and physical. 
But this perfect holiness we have in Jesus, and not 
that alone. We have such originality, such a complete- 
ness and fixity of plan from first to last, such insight 
into man and the future, as to betoken a wisdom and 
knowledge more than human, just as His miracles 
betoken a power more than human. In other words, 
we see united in Him the threefold supernatural—super- 
natural power, wisdom, holiness, which betoken, at the 
root of them, His supernatural essence. Accordingly 
His unique personality can be the result of no mere 
earthly chemistry or evolution. A spring that rises 
so very high must have its origin beyond the highest 
summits of earth, in the very heaven of heavens itself. 
As the chemist can, from the slightest analysis, deduce 
that a stone is meteoric, and has descended upon the 
earth from a higher sphere; so the analysis of the 


1 See Appendix, Note XVIII. 


278 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Person of Jesus shows that He, the second Adam, is 
the Lord from heaven. As the sun demonstrates his 
existence, surpassing splendour, and power by his light, 
heat, and attraction ; so Christ demonstrates Himself to 
be the Sun of Righteousness by the surpassing heavenly 
light and splendour, and the mighty, attractive power of 
His Person. ‘His Ocompéresa or God-becoming impress 
of majesty, sovereignty, ommniscience, independence, 
holiness, justice, goodness, wisdom, and power, is not 
only a sufficient and real, but in very deed the greatest 
objective light and evidence imaginable.’ In the very 
act of looking at Him, we see Him to be not only a 
reality, but a supernatural, yea, a divine Person. In 
fine, Christ as seen in the Gospels is His own best 
proof, and the best proof of the supernatural and divine 
character of His religion. 


1 Halyburton, Mature of Faith, chap. iii. 


XI. 


SOME IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES, AND THE 
ARGUMENT THEREFROM. 


THE object of the present study is to adduce some 
important facts and elements not yet discussed, and 
show how they converge on and in Christianity; to 
prove that, according to the Theory of Probabilities, 
they cannot well have united in Christianity by mere 
chance, but only by intelligent design ; and to draw the 
reasonable conclusion therefrom, that its origin must be 
supernatural and divine. 

The general principle of the argument is very simple. 
It resolves itself very much into the commonplace 
question, How can we distinguish whether an object or 
event is the outcome of mere chance or of intelligent 
design? It may be that the discovery of a single ele- 
ment in it which looks like the adaptation of means to 
an end, may not exactly prove it to have been the 
product of intelligence. But when two such elements, 
and still more when three or four, are plainly discovered, 
the likelihood that intelligence was present becomes 


280 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


vastly increased. When ten or twenty or more singular 
elements, all converging to the same end, have been 
discovered, the case becomes certain. Without any 
doubt we take it out of the category of mere chance, 
and set it down as the outcome of intelligence. In what 
follows we mean to adduce a number of singular facts, 
which converge and focus in Christianity, all contributing 
to one and the same end, and to conclude therefrom 
that Christianity cannot reasonably be supposed to be 
the outcome of mere drift and chance, but must be 
regarded as the product of a divine intelligence coming 
down upon history from: above, and working within its 
current.’ 

We have now to look at the genesis and history of 
Christianity; to adduce some of the suggestive features 
and peculiarities referred to, and to consider their natural 
bearing and reading. 

One of these peculiarities is the monotheism of the 
Jewish race in which Christianity emerged. We do not 
enter into any discussion as to whether monotheism was 
the primary religion of man or not. It is plain that if 
it was, it did not long continue to be so. Hume holds 
that ‘polytheism and idolatry was and naturally must 
have been the first and most ancient religion of man- 
kind.’ Rawlinson says, ‘It seems impossible to maintain 
that men are instinctively monotheists.” ‘If we are 

1 See Appendix, Note XIX. 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 281 


asked,’ says Max Miiller, ‘how it was that Abraham 
passed through the denial of all the gods to the know- 
ledge of the one true God, we are content to answer 
that it was by a special divine revelation. Here, then, 
is how the matter stands, Of all the thousand or more 
tribes and nations of antiquity, the Jews, and the Jews 
alone, possessed and held fast in the central current of 
their history and life the doctrine of the ‘one living and 
true God.’ Amidst multitudes of temptations from 
idolatrous nations around them, and even in the midst 
of their own country, in spite of a powerful tendency, 
even among themselves, constantly to apostatize into 
polytheism, their monotheism remained the grand peculi- 
arity, the palladium, the life and reason of the national 
existence. This is a.very striking and undeniable fact, 
however we may choose to explain it. 

Another very important fact in the Christian line of 
history is our collection of sacred books. In this 
expression we are to include at present the Old Testa- 
ment as well as the New. These sacred books form a 
progressive organic religious unity, such as is found in 
the literature of no other nation.. They begin with the 
germs of a religion which goes on developing by a 
gradual but supernatural growth, like that of some 
sacred tree, for a period of fifteen hundred years, until 
we arrive at the blossom or fruit in the form of Chris- 
tianity. They form a unity with one spirit and life 


282 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


running through them all. However different the 
authors, and however distant from each other in time or 
place, their contributions, instead of coming into colli- 
sion, harmonize, and fall into their proper place in the 
organic growth and whole, until the culmination is 
reached in the New Testament. This is something 
extremely singular, quite unique in the history of nations. 
We find no such consistent, organic religious unity in 
the literature of any other people. We do not find it 
in that of ancient Greece ; on the contrary, it has almost 
no unity except that of language. We find thinker 
standing up against thinker, and philosophers denounc- 
ing and opposing the systems of each other with the 
utmost freedom and determination. In like manner, 
we find no such religious organic growth and unity 
in the literature of our own country. It is impossible 
to regard its multifarious productions, its warring literary, 
philosophic, scientific, and theological schools, as forming 
any organicunity. It presents, indeed, a perfect contrast 
tothe Bible literature. Accordingly, when we contem- 
plate the literature of the Jews as we have it in the Holy 
Scriptures, and see that it is a unity, a religious unity 
and growth, the organism of one religious life and spirit, 
we discover that this forms another and an essential 
characteristic in the Christian line of history. 

Another extremely striking element is the wonderful 
preservation of the Jewish nation itself. This is also quite 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 283 


aunique phenomenon. This singular people maintained 
their separate existence in the iron furnace of Egyptian 
bondage. In Palestine they contrived to survive, though 
ground between the upper and the nether millstones of 
Assyria and Egypt. They were carried away captive 
into Babylon, but their nationality was not destroyed— 
was only intensified thereby. They were dispersed still 
more widely under the sway of the Syrian kings, during 
the four centuries between the Old Testament and the 
New, so that at the advent of Christ they were found in 
every large town of the Roman Empire; but in spite 
of it all, they tenaciously preserved their national 
distinction. They continued during the dark ages, | 
scattered throughout Christendom, everywhere exposed 
to furious persecution and the most fearful barbarities 
and massacres ; yet the stubborn people still maintained 
their independent existence. After thousands of years 
have passed away, they exist at the present day dis- 
persed among all nations, but separate from them, and 
likely to remain separate for an indefinite time to come. 
This is a fact quite unparalleled in history. There is 
no case on record of a people driven from their native 
country, scattered among all nations, and speaking their 
respective languages, and yet, in spite of the most 
powerful inducements to the contrary, continuing quite 
distinct from them for millenniums. This, whatever we 
may make of it, isa most singular and instructive fact. 


284 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


It is said that Frederick William I. of Prussia once 
asked one of his chaplains for a proof of Christianity, 
adding that he must be short with it, for business was 
pressing. The chaplain answered instantaneously, ‘Sire, 
the Jews.’ And there is a large amount of truth in the 
reply ; for the unique history of the Jews is in itself a 
very striking proof of Christianity. 

But what makes this wonderful truth more wonderful 
still, is the fact that it was distinctly prophesied. It 
was distinctly and repeatedly foretold that the Jews 
should be scattered amongst all nations, and yet not 
be annihilated or absorbed. We find this clearly 
prophesied in the books of Moses. We do not require 
to consider at present the question of their date. It is 
certain that they were written before the year 400 B.C., 
and that is clearly enough for our purpose. We read 
in these books statements like the following: ‘I will 
scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a 
sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and 
your cities waste.... And yet for all that, when they be 
in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, 
neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and 
to break My covenant with them’ (Lev. xxvi. 33, 44). 
Again, in Micah (v. 7) we read that ‘the remnant of 
Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew 
from the Lord. Our Lord, in His prophecy of the 
destruction of the Holy City, declares that the people 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 285 


‘shall be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem 
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times 
of the Gentiles be fulfilled’ (Luke xxi. 24). The 
Apostle Paul takes it for granted that the separate 
existence of the Jews in their dispersion will continue 
until the complete Christianization of the Gentile world, 
an event obviously as yet far enough off. He says, 
‘Blindness in part is happened unto Israel until the 
fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so shall all 
Israel be saved’ (Rom. xi. 25, 26). From all this it 
appears that it was a matter of distinct prophecy that 
the Jews should be scattered among the nations, and 
yet maintain their separate national existence. This 
was a most unlikely event, the prophesying of which no 
astute impostor would have dared to venture. But after 
all, we find that this most unlikely prophecy has been, 
is being, and is likely to be wonderfully fulfilled to the 
very letter. Surely such a strange coincidence could not 
possibly happen by any mere chance. 

Another very striking truth is this, that just in 
this singular race Jesus Christ actually came — ‘Of 
them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.’ We do not 
say anything at present concerning His divine nature 
and mission, but only accentuate the facts just mentioned, 
which all will admit. A unique Person did appear 
among this people, more than eighteen hundred years 
ago, whose character must be admitted to be peculiarly 


286 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


noble, powerful, and original. He revolutionized the 
religion of the world, and that too in a way quite un- 
paralleled. However great a man’s capacity for scep- 
ticism may be, no sane man can deny that Jesus of 
Nazareth has produced a greater effect upon the world 
than all Greek and Roman sages, statesmen and generals, 
with all their mighty appliances. Surely it is very 
strange, that just in this wonderful stream of history, 
and nowhere else amid the thousand tribes of the earth, 
the Founder of the great world-religion should have 
appeared. Surely it must begin to dawn upon the 
mind that so many singular elements could not drift 
together by mere wild chance. 

But what increases the wonder a thousandfold, is the 
fact that such a Messiah was distinctly prophesied in 
the Old Testament as destined to arise in the Jewish 
race. Not to mention the suggestive symbolism of the 
law, we find an almost unbroken current of prophecy, 
clearly Messianic in its spirit, pointing to some great 
Messiah, or Anointed One, who was to come. ‘The 
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Some- 
times the utterance is more dim; sometimes it is very 
clear; but it meets us everywhere. He is the Seed 
promised to Abraham, in whom all the families of the 
earth are to be blessed ; the Shiloh who was to come ; 
the Prophet like unto Moses. He is David’s Son and 
David’s Lord, who was to be King on Zion, whose 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 287 


dominion was to extend from sea to sea, and endure as 
long as the sun and moon. He was to be the Wonder- 
ful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the Father of 
Eternity, the Prince of Peace, the Rod out of the stem 
of Jesse ; who was to be wounded for our transgressions, 
to make His soul an offering for sin, and on whom the 
Lord was to lay the iniquity of us all. He was the 
Branch of righteousness who was to grow up unto 
David; the Lord our Righteousness ; the Son of man 
who was to come in the clouds of heaven; the Messiah 
who was to be cut off, not for Himself, but for the sins 
of the people. All this is admitted in his own way even 
by Strauss. ‘The expectation of the Messiah had 
become a peculiar national idea.’ It was ‘the expecta- 
tion of a sovereign of David’s sort, of the lineage of 
David ;’ and ‘the name of Messiah, or the Anointed, 
was adopted for the expected Deliverer.! Surely this 
current of antecedent prophecy, which even unbelievers 
are compelled in some measure to admit, makes the 
strange fact of the advent of Christ in the Jewish race 
yet more strange and striking. 


* See New Life of Jesus, pp. 225 ff Renan, Vie de Jésus, chap. i. 
‘Lord Bolingbroke asserts Jesus Christ to have brought on His own death 
by a series of wilful and preconcerted measures, merely to give the disciples 
who came after Him the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies ! ’>— 
Chalmers, Euzdences of the Christian Revelation, Book ii. chap. vii. 3. 
Surely this implies that Bolingbroke believed very strongly that the death 
of the Messiah was explicitly prophesied in the Old Testament. 


288 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


But this wonder is still more intensified by the fact 
that the Jews universally expected the Messiah about 
the time at which He actually did appear. If scepticism 
should try to explain away the so-called prophecies as 
mere poetry or happy guesses, yet here is a stubborn 
fact that cannot be denied. At the time of Christ's 
advent, the Jews were on the very tiptoe of Messianic 
expectation. We see this from the New Testament. 
Not only was it the assured expectation of the devout, 
like Simeon and Anna, but also of the Jews in general. 
When John the Baptist began his ministry, they sent a 
deputation to him, to ask if he was the Christ ; and the 
coming of the Messiah was also a foremost thought 
even in the Samaritan mind, as we learn from our 
Lord’s conversation with the woman at Jacob’s well. 
But we know of this widespread expectation among the 
Jews not merely from the New Testament; we know 
it also from their own books—their Targums and 
apocryphal literature! The air of Judea was perfectly 
electric with feverish hope and expectation that the 


1 Thus even Josephus: ‘ But now, what did most elevate [the Jews] in 
undertaking this war [which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem], was an 
ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how “about 
that time one from their country should become governor of the habitable 
earth.”” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in parti- 
cular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determina- 
tion.” He characteristically adds: ‘This oracle certainly denoted the 
government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judza.’— Wars, 
Book vi. chap. v. 4. 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 289 


Messianic day was just about to break. This is 
frankly acknowledged even by negative thinkers. Keim 
testifies that ‘the times of Jesus were full of a restless 
expectation of the salvation that was to come.” ‘The 
old prophetic watchwords—the Messiah, Christ, the 
kingdom of the Great King, the kingdom of heaven, the 
throne and seed of David—were, in the days of John 
the Baptist and Jesus, on every man’s lips in Judzea and 
Galilee, and even in Samaria” And the still more 
negative Renan witnesses to the same effect : ‘In Judxa 
expectation was at its full) Men felt that the age was 
travailing with mighty events ; they felt the approach 
of something unknown. Revolution, or, to use another 
word, Messianism, set all heads working. People 
believed they were on the eve of seeing the advent 
of the great renewal.’? Nothing can be plainer than 
the fact that the Jewish people were full at this 
very time of Messianic expectation, and by this 
same fact they bore their testimony that this was 
the age in which Jesus was to come. And when 
we consider that the Messiah not only came, but 
came in the very age in which He was expected, 
surely this must seem so passing strange that we 
cannot reasonably regard it as the outcome of mere 

1 Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. i. pp. 244 f. Compare the 


whole section, ‘ Die messianische Hoffnung,’ vol. i. Pp. 239-250. 
* Renan, Vie de Jésus, pp. 18, 63. 
ah 


290 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


chance, but only of a gracious Providence cuiding the 
current of history. 

Another consideration which is very strange and 
striking, is the fact that the advent of Christ took place 
at what is well called ‘the fulness of the time. The 
Jewish people still existed as a nation under one govern- 
ment, and the sceptre had not quite departed from 
Judah; and yet only forty years elapsed after the 
crucifixion until Jerusalem was destroyed, the nation 
broken up and dispersed, and the Jewish religion in its 
true ceremonial at an end for ever. Furthermore, the 
Jews were now scattered over all the civilised world, and 
had a community and synagogue in every large city. 
These formed so many hearths for receiving the sacred 
fire of Christianity, and hence as a rule the apostles 
sought out and preached the gospel first of all to these 
communities, and met with their first converts there. 
We also find that, through the conquests and coloniza- 
tion, the culture and the commerce of the Greeks, their 
language had in this age become a kind of common 
tongue. A knowledge of Greek was almost enough to 
carry the early preachers of the gospel over the length 
and breadth of the civilised world. Once more, it was 
an age in which the world-wide empire of Rome, by its 
vigorous rule, maintained practically universal peace. 
Under its imperial canopy the missionary of the cross 


had at first no hindrance or difficulty in passing from 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 291 


province to province, from country to country, from 
tribe to tribe, in a way which would have been utterly 
impossible had they all been in a state of mutual 
hostility, or even isolation. The inscription on the 
cross, written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, was a 
suggestive symbol that the three great lines of ancient 
history—the Hebrew, the Greek, and the Latin—con- 
verged to prepare the fulness of the times, and met as in 
a focus at the cross. In this convergence of historic 
lines we see another very strange phenomenon con- 
nected with Christianity. 

We find another singular fact in the establishment of 
the Church by Christ. He established it in the world, 
humanly speaking, by the most unlikely means, as we 
have already seen in a previous study. He not only 
established it, but caused it to make rapid and wonder- 
ful progress. As we look at the tiny barque of the 
Church setting sail, we see that it begins at once to 
move up the stream against all the opposition of moral 
and social currents and forces, and in spite of political 
storms and waves. Steadily but surely, propelled by no 
mere human power, we see it moving against stream 
and wind and tide, contrary to all the laws of earthly 
navigation. The Church encountered even the most 
fearful persecution on the part of kings and governors, 
who did their very utmost by the prison, the sword, and 
the stake, to sweep it from the face of the earth. But 


292 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


by and by, in spite of Jewish bigotry and hatred; in 
spite of Greek culture, philosophy, and contempt ; in 
spite of Roman pride, determination, and imperial 
power, it conquered the very Empire itself, and sat 
down upon the throne of the Czesars. It remains unto 
this day able and eager for further conquests ; for it is 
founded upon the Rock, and the gates of hell cannot 
prevail against it. Here then is another wonder. Out 
of this same Christian line of history, out of Christ 
springs that religion which, in spite of all opposition, has 
won the sovereignty over the flower of the nations, has 
organized itself in the Christian Church, and alone 
promises to be the ultimate religion of the world. This 
is another of those singular elements which unite in the 
line of the Christian history, and take it out of the realm 
of blind chance, and the grinding of mere unintelligent 
laws and forces. 

But we have further to remark, that the planting and 
spread of the Church was also an explicit subject of 
prophecy. It was from the earliest ages a theme of 
Old Testament prophecy. It was pointed to in the 
promise made ‘to Abraham, and already quoted, that 
in his seed all families of the earth should be blessed. 
It was referred to in the Messianic prophecies: ‘I shall 
give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession; He 
shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 293 


river unto the ends of the earth.” The Jews of Christ’s 
day understood these and similar prophecies as implying 
universal dominion on the part of the Messiah. And 
this line of prophecy is taken up by Christ Himself 
when He declares: ‘Upon this rock I will build My 
Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against 
it; all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth ; 
go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature. The same truth is clearly taught in the 
apostolic writings: ‘He must reign till He hath put all 
enemies under His feet. And in the Revelation of 
John, Messiah is represented as going on conquering 
and to conquer, until at last ‘the kingdom of the world 
is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ.’ 
Obviously the universal dominion of the Church is the 
theme of clearest prophecy ; and when we reflect that, 
so far as man could foresee, this was one of the most 
unlikely events, we may safely conclude that such 
prophecies are no mere lucky guesses, but genuine 
prophecies with a real fulfilment which is being 
actualized from age to age. 

Over against this we may look at another very 
singular fact, viz. the prophecy of the great corruption 
of the Church, followed, alas! by a fulfilment only too 
literal. This was a kind of prophecy not likely to be 
_indulged in by a mere forger. Such a writer would 
have portrayed the future in the most brilliant colours, 


2904 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


and would never have spoiled the dramatic effect by 
dashing the picture with dark shades and discordant 
elements. But we find that the New Testament ex- 
plicitly foretells the fearful degeneracy and corruption 
of even the Church of Christ. Our Lord distinctly does 
so Himself in the parable of the Tares (Matt. xiii. 24 ff.). 
The Apostle Paul does so once and again, and very 
particularly in Second Thessalonians, one of his very 
earliest Epistles, of which the second chapter has a very 
distinct bearing on the present point. The same is true 
of the Apostle Peter. In his Second Epistle (ii. 1, 2) 
he says : ‘ There shall be false teachers among you, who 
privily shall bring in destructive heresies, and many 
shall follow their pernicious ways.’ And not to mention 
the Apocalypse, the Apostle John speaks once and 
again of the Antichrist who was to come. These and 
other similar prophecies were not only made, but, as all 
history declares, were literally fulfilled. No one can 
glance at the multitudes of heretics and sectaries in 
ancient and modern times without seeing that this is 
true. No one with an unbiassed mind can contemplate 
the Romish Church, especially in the dark ages, and 
compare it with the Church of the New Testament, 
without feeling the vast change that has taken place in 
spirit, in doctrine, in ritual and practice. Nevertheless, 
it was the distinct burden of other prophecies that the 
Church would surmount and survive such inward corrup- 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 295 


tion, as well as all outward hostility. And this also has 
been realized in history. These prophecies, and their 
fulfilment, we may well regard as another singular fact, 
though perhaps not of the same high rank with most of 
the others mentioned, pointing to the conclusion that 
Christianity is not of chance, nor of man, but of God.1 
There is one very special prophecy by our Lord, 
referring to a singular event occupying an important 
place in the line of Christian history, to which it may 
be well to refer in this connection. We mean the com- 
plete destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple, 
and the consequent termination of the Jewish dispensa- 
tion. This event has special significance when viewed 
alongside of the prophecies referring to the beginning 
and perpetuity of the Christian Church and dispensation. 
That our Lord actually uttered such a prophecy, there 
is no well-founded reason to doubt. It is strongly and 
literally declared in the utterance to which He gave 
expression when He wept over the city, an incident so 
remarkable that the utterance connected therewith could 
not easily be forgotten. It is implied in His words to 
the daughters of Jerusalem on His way to Calvary ; 
another incident and utterance not likely to be forgotten. 
But above all, it is fully detailed in Matt. xxiv., Mark 
xiii, and Luke xxi. Of these, the first two narratives 
were certainly written before the event took place ; for 


1 Cf, Cairns, Success of Christianity, p. 39. 


206 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


not only do they refer to it as future, but they contain 
a parenthetic note apparently meant for the timely 
warning of their readers: ‘Let him that readeth under- 
stand ;’ a note which has no point whatever unless the 
events be still future. The early Christians rightly under- 
stood those prophecies as referring to the destruction of 
Jerusalem, and when the thunder-brooding clouds began 
to lower over the city, they fled to Pella beyond Jordan, 
and so escaped the ruin. We do not need to dwell on 
the fact that Josephus, though no Christian, testifies to 
the literal fulfilment of our Lord’s prophecies in the 
utter destruction of the city and temple—an event which 
formed the end of the Jewish dispensation, and implied 
that it had given way to the Christian age. This is 
another singular event which falls in with the current of 
the Christian history. | 

Another line of evidence, both interesting and import- 
ant, which may well find a place here, is that which we 
possess in the continued existence of the Lord’s Supper. 
We know as a most certain fact that the Lord’s Supper 
has existed, and been the central ordinance of the Church, 
from the days of the apostles and the other contempo- 
raries of Christ. We do not require to trace its observ- 
ance back, step by step, until we arrive at the Apostolic 
Age; for we know directly and most certainly that it 
existed then. It will be remembered that we have very 
full references to this sacrament in the tenth and eleventh 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 297 


chapters of First Corinthians. We may especially refer 
to the words of institution as they are delivered to us 
by Paul in the latter chapter in a passage familiar to 
every Christian (vv. 23-29). But it will also be remem- 
bered that First Corinthians is one of those Epistles of 
Paul which, as we have seen in a previous study, are 
incontestably genuine,— undisputed, and indisputable, 
according to the great representatives of the unbelieving 
schools of criticism in Germany, France, and England. 
We know, then, for a certain fact, acknowledged even 
by the most thoroughgoing opponents of New Testament 
Christianity, that the Lord’s Supper was a common 
ordinance at the meetings of the faithful on the Lord’s 
Day from the very beginning of the Christian Church. 
Now this sacrament may be regarded as a monument 
or memorial ordinance of the very highest class. Every 
one can see at a glance that an almost contemporary 
monument, memorial, or memorial ordinance must be 
the very best evidence possible in regard to a past event. 
Narratives may be forged, but monuments and memo- 
rials cannot be so easily forged, and memorial ordinances 
least of all. The monument upon the field of Waterloo 
is an excellent witness to all succeeding ages of the great 
battle there. A coin with the head and name of Aretas 
is the very best proof that there existed princes of that 
name, though we find little mention made of them in 
history. The arch of Titus at Rome is an incontro- 


298 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


vertible proof of the capture of Jerusalem. The cele- 
brated Moabite stone is an irresistible witness to the 
historical reality of Mesha, king of Moab. But while 
such monuments and memorials as these are very high 
evidence, memorial ordinances are higher still. The 
observance of the fourth of July by the Americans, as 
the anniversary of their independence, must continue for 
ever an unassailable proof of the event. The celebration 
of the Passover is, independently of the narrative in 
Exodus, an excellent proof of the deliverance of Israel 
from Egypt. Memorial ordinances like these are the 
very highest kind of evidence, because it is scarcely pos- 
sible that they can have been forged. Any wealthy 
man who takes the whim may raise the monument, any 
coiner may forge the coin, but it is next to impossible to 
fabricate a memorial ordinance to commemorate an event 
which is alleged to have just taken place, but which every 
one knows to be a pure myth. People will not allow 
such an observance to be palmed off upon them; they 
will not readily lend themselves to such a gross public 
deception; and hence it follows that a memorial ordi- 
nance, reaching back to the age of the event commemo- 
rated, is evidence of the very highest kind. 

Now all this holds good in regard to the sacrament 
of the Supper. It is a very characteristic memorial 
ordinance. It reaches back, beyond all contradiction, 
as we have seen, to the New Testament age. We can 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 299 


trace back the regular observance of it until within a 
few years of Christ’s death, along with the observance of 
the Lord’s Day, on which it was celebrated. It is im- 
possible that it could have been forged and foisted in 
upon the early Church ; for not only were the apostles 
themselves alive at the time, but multitudes besides, 
who knew whether Christ had actually lived, and died, 
and risen again from the dead. We may accept the 
regular celebration of the Supper on the Lord’s Day as 
testimony of the very highest order. 

What, then, does the Lord’s Supper, taken along 
with the Lord’s Day on which it was held, testify ? We 
see that it testifies to the historical reality of Jesus. 
There was such a person. It testifies to His real 
humanity, for it symbolizes and mentions His body and 

His blood, It testifies to His divinity. It does so not 
merely by its name—the Lorp’s Supper, but by the 
fact that the whole ordinance is a service of the highest 
worship to the Saviour. It testifies to His death: for, 
not to speak of its explicit design, and the breaking of 
the bread, the separation of the bread and wine distinctly 
symbolizes the separation of the body and blood; in 
other words, a violent death by blood-shedding. It 
testifies to His death as a true atonement: ‘This is My 
body which is [broken] for you ;’ ‘This cup is the new 
covenant in My blood.’ It testifies to His resurrection 
very especially, because of its celebration. on the first 


300 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


day of the week, the day set apart from the very first in 
commemoration of our Lord’s resurrection. It testifies 
to the need of personal appropriating faith in Christ and 
His atoning death: ‘Take, eat ;’ the cup is ‘the com- 
munion of the blood of Christ;’ the bread is ‘the 
communion of the body of Christ.’ It testifies to the 
idea, existence, and unity of the Holy Catholic Church : 
‘For we being many are one bread and one body; for 
we are all partakers of that one bread.’ In other words, 
restricting ourselves entirely to First Corinthians, we 
see that in the Lord’s Supper we have a memorial 
ordinance going back to the time of Christ, an ordinance 
which could not be forged, and which testifies most 
explicitly to the grand facts and doctrines which form 
the basis and substance of Christianity. It furnishes 
us, in short, with a separate and independent line of 
proof of the very highest order, which cannot be ex- 
plained by mere chance. 

Such are a few lines and elements of importance 
that converge in the sacred history of which Christianity 
is the flower and crown. Their number might easily be 
increased ; but the preceding are enough to indicate the 
nature and the point of our present argument It is 
this: that such a multitude of very striking and special 
elements and lines, many of them distinctly prophesied, 
and all converging to one and the same great end, 
cannot have originated and met together by blind 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES, 301 


chance. It must have been the result of a guiding 
intelligence somewhere. It is quite obvious that it 
cannot be explained as the result of intelligence merely 
human ; for the continuity of the Jewish race, the coming 
of Christ, the spread of the Church, and the antecedent 
prophecies in regard to these wonderful events, are 
obviously beyond the reach of man. Accordingly, it 
follows that here we have a current of history which is 
under special divine guidance, in which God manifests 
Himself in a positively miraculous and supernatural 
way. In short, mere chance is out of the question, and 
therefore we must recognise in it the hand of God. 

But to many minds nothing gives so vivid and firm a 
grasp of a result as figures. Let us consider, then, how 
we might approximately express the possibility of all 
this happening by mere chance in virtue of the mathe- 
matical Theory of Probabilities! It is a simple and 
easily demonstrable mathematical law, that ‘the pro- 
bability of the joint occurrence of any set of independent 
events is the product of their separate probabilities.” To 
make this plainer by an example :—If we have a bag 
with a hundred balls, of which ninety-nine are black and 
only one white, the probability of drawing the white 
ball at the first trial is only 1 to 100 (;45); the proba- 
bility of drawing it twice in succession is not I to 200, 
but one to 10,000 (7d5X7}5); the chance of drawing 


1 Compare Appendix, Note XIV, 


302 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


it thrice in succession is only 1 to 1,000,000 (7}p X tho X 
toy), etc. In other words, the ultimate chance or pro- 
bability is the product of the separate chances or 
probabilities ; so that to find the ultimate probability we 
have simply to multiply the separate probabilities. 

Now it is not difficult to apply this in a general way 
to the case before us. The main difficulty is to estimate 
the chance or probability of each individual instance ; 
but as our object is a practical tllustration rather than 
mathematical exactness, we shall content ourselves with 
a general estimate of the probabilities, which in most 
cases will fall far within the mark. We take up the 
elements in the order in which they have been given in 
the previous pages. 

The first of these was the unique monotheism of the 
Jewish race. It was the only ancient race that possessed 
and held fast to monotheism. There were probably a 
thousand different tribes existing in the ancient world ; 
but let us say that there were only Ioo. The probability, 
therefore, that just this race out of 100 should alone 
be monotheistic, is only as I to I00 (x45). The 
uniqueness of the sacred literature was the next point. 
There is no other sacred literature like it in existence. 
The chance that it should have been found in the 
Jewish race is again only 1 to 100 (;}5). Accordingly, 
by the Theory of Probabilities, the chance that the two 
elements mentioned should have been found in the 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING. LINES. 303 


Jewish race, and there alone, is the product of the 
above, 2é. 3999) OF 1 to 10,000. Again, the very 
wonderful preservation of the Jews, quite singular among 
the supposed 100 nations, gives a chance of I to 100 
(zdo)- That this unique historic fact should have been 
distinctly prophesied and exactly fulfilled, is a thing so 
unlikely to have resulted by blind chance, that it is 
hard to express the probability by mere figures ; but 
let us put it down as also I to 100 (7J,). In like 
manner, we might go on through all (let us say) the 
twelve special elements which we have adduced, esti- 
mating the probability that each one should take place 
at all, and take place just in this line and nowhere else, 
as I to 100 (,4,)). To find the resultant probability 
that all these should have happened to converge by 
chance, we must multiply the separate probabilities. 
The result is y,590,000.000.00000,0,000,000.000' That 
is to say, the probability that the above elements 
should have taken place and united in the Chris- 
tian line of history by mere chance is only as I to 
I,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, a probability in itself 
so infinitesimal, that it is impossible to have any clear 
idea of it. In other words, it is improbable in the highest 
conceivable degree that Christianity can be the result of 
mere blind chance and not of divine intelligence. At all 
events, the probability of its being the outcome of 
chance is so excessively small, that in all ordinary cases 


304. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


it would be considered as practically equal to nothing, 
and would be totally disregarded. 

The method commonly adopted to break down 
such cumulative evidence as we have adduced above, 
is the method of special pleading. The advocate of 
unbelief takes up the different lines of proof one by one, 
shows how there is nothing in them separately; how 
they are found elsewhere separately in other systems ; 
and how they can all be accounted for by mere nature 
and historical evolution. After doing this, he thinks 
his task triumphantly accomplished, and practically he 
turns round and says to the bewildered inquirer, ‘ Behold 
how the entire mass of evidence has vanished!’ But 
after all, he has scarcely touched the heart and strength 
of the argument, which consists not merely in so many 
separate, independent lines, but in the fact that so many 
singular lines should converge to one and the same end. 

Perhaps we may make the matter clearer by a simple 
illustration. Let us take the case of a jury trial, in 
which the prisoner at the bar is clearly guilty. The 
evidence consists, let us say, of a dozen strong converg- 
ing lines. The advocate in defence is a skilful special 
pleader, and addresses himself to the task in detail. He 
takes up the first line of evidence fastening the crime 
upon the prisoner, and shows that it may have happened 
quite naturally, and yet the man be innocent. He takes 
up the second converging line, and shows that it has 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES, 305 


happened in such and such a case before and yet meant 
nothing. And so he goes over the whole twelve lines, 
explaining each of them away, and showing how they 
really prove nothing. But by this method he does not 
move a common-sense jury in the least. They will 
reply that it is very skilful pleading, but it does not 
touch the heart of the matter. It is possible that one, 
or even two, of the lines may hold good, without proving 
the prisoner necessarily guilty. But the fact that six 
such lines should converge upon him, makes his guilt 
practically certain; while the convergence of twelve 
such lines places his guilt beyond all possibility of a 
moment’s doubt. The advocate with all his cleverness 
fails to account for the convergence of so many lines 
upon the same person, and it is just in this that the 
strength of the evidence lies. The jury see this by 
their practical logic and common sense, and with the 
utmost confidence they convict the prisoner, and bring 
in a verdict of guilty, though it is certain to cost him 
his life. 

Now the course of procedure adopted by the advocates 
of unbelief is very much the same, and the cause of its 
weakness very much the same. They take up one by 
one the elements of the evidence bearing on Christianity, 
and attempt to dispose of them as best they can by 
showing that there is in them nothing supernatural or 


even uncommon. If we speak of the monotheism of the 
U 


300 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Jews, they will adduce dim and lingering indications 
that monotheistic views were secretly held by the priests 
of Egypt. If we point to the peculiarity of our sacred 
books, they will point to those of the ancient Parsees. 
If we mention the marvellous preservation of the Jews, 
they will place over against it the case of the gipsies. If 
we adduce the wondrous character of Christ, they will 
affect to parallel it with that of Socrates, who himself 
declared that he had in his heart the germs of all evil 
inclinations. If we speak of His matchless moral teach- 
ing, they will sing the praises of Buddha, of Epictetus, or 
Marcus Aurelius. If we bring forward His miracles, they 
will talk of the fictitious wonders of Apollonius of Tyana. 
If we point to the marvellous spread of the Church, they 
will point to the marvellous spread of Mohammedanism. 
By thus taking up the different elements of proof one by 
one, and trying to parallel them by something brought 
from the north, or south, or east, or west, they think that 
they have destroyed the force of the argument. But 
they have scarcely even touched it. Their parallels only 
need to be looked at in order to see that, for the most 
part, they are no real parallels at all, and some of them 
more properly cases of conspicuous contrast than of 
parallelism. But even though they were ten times more 
apt than they are, the essential point is yet untouched— 
the fact that all those lines of evidence should converge 
upon and unite in Christianity. The problem is not, 


IMPORTANT CONVERGING LINES. 307 


Can we explain away this or that element by mere 
chance or natural causes? but, How do the elements all 
come to meet in one and the same centre? Was it by 
chance that all the military roads led to ancient Rome, 
or was it because it was the imperial city ?? 

What, then, is the natural outcome of the whole? 
What is the inference most reasonably to be drawn from 
the many converging lines, some of them strange and 
unique, which unite in and around Christianity? Is it 
not that there must have been presiding over it a great 
Intelligence, ‘the King of the ages,’ watching and work- 
ing on throughout the weary centuries, and graciously 
directing all for the highest good of man? Or are we to 
suppose that this wonderful convergence is only the result 
of a happy, or rather of an unhappy, and delusive chance? 
Surely it must require no small capacity of faith to 
believe this latter. We cannot imagine that the noble 
ship riding in all its stateliness at anchor in the river, 
with its freight of hopeful emigrants bound for a new 
world, is the result of mere chance. We cannot suppose 
that its planks and cordage and other material kept 
floating up and down all oceans, until at last they were 
wrought into proper shape and size by tossing and fric- 
tion; and then were luckily drifted together by a 
thousand different winds and currents from all seas and 
all directions of the compass, so as to meet at last in 


1 Compare Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, p. 31. 
Pp , 


308 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


some secluded Highland loch. We cannot suppose 
that, on a night of mysterious darkness and storm, the 
different materials were luckily washed and jolted and 
lifted up into their proper places and there fixed, by the 
play of wild winds and waves, so that when the morning 
broke the completed ship floated upon the water in all 
its queenly pride. And just as little can we reasonably 
suppose that the wonderful elements of which we have 
spoken in this and the preceding studies, after tossing 
hither and thither for ages as flotsam upon the surface 
of human history, were wrought by the tossing into 
proper form,—were wafted at last by a thousand different 
storms and currents and counter-currents from all pos- 
sible quarters into the little troubled bay of Jewry; 
and that there, by some strange conjunction of blind 
chances, they were united and built up into that noble 
Ark of our common Christianity, which rides so trium- 
phantly upon the surging sea of time, freighted with the 
highest destinies of man, with all the noblest hopes of 
the future, and with many happy pilgrims bound for the 
world beyond, 


XIT. 


CHRISTIANITY PROVING ITSELF BY THE PRINCIPLE 
OF THE ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 


IN the seventh chapter of Exodus we meet with a 
singular and suggestive miracle. We see Aaron in the 
presence of Pharaoh confronted with the wise men of 
Egypt. Weare told that he cast down his rod, and it 
became a serpent; and that the wise men did the same 
with their rods, and these became serpents also. But 
the end of the scene was, that ‘ Aaron’s rod swallowed 
up their rods ;’ and we read that afterwards it budded, 
and blossomed, and brought forth almonds. 

The miracles of Moses and Aaron, like those of Christ, 
were not mere wonders to gratify man’s empty curiosity, 
but are habitually called ‘signs.’ They are ‘signs,’ that 
is, significant or symbolical of some truth. They are 
what we would nowadays call a kind of object-lesson. 
And it is not difficult to discern what is the lesson taught, 
or at least suggested, by the present miracle. The rod 
is the symbol of authority, power, office. It is, in short, 
the sceptre. Aaron, as the future high priest, is the 


310 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


representative of the true God and His _heaven- 
descended religion. Accordingly his rod or sceptre is 
the symbol of the power and dominion of God and His 
religion. The wise men of Egypt, on the other hand, 
are the representatives of mere man-made religions, 
human speculations, and earth-born systems. Their rods 
or sceptres are the symbols of the power and dominion 
of those human religions and systems. But Aaron’s rod 
swallowed up their rods, and this fact teaches by a very 
vivid symbolism that the dominion of the divine religion 
is destined to supersede all man-made systems and mere 
nature-religions, to overturn their thrones and set up in 
their place its own eternal throne. 

Of course, living in the Christian Age, we naturally 
apply the truth taught by this symbolism to the Chris- 
tian religion. As the heaven-born, ultimate world- 
religion, it is demonstrating its power and final destiny 
by superseding all other religions. 

The science of the present age speaks much about a 
great principle that determines and regulates the con- 
tinuity and upward progress of life on the earth. That 
principle is the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in the struggle 
for existence, The means of supporting life on the earth 
are of necessity limited, and hence arises a constant 
struggle for existence. In this struggle it is only the 
most powerful, ‘the fittest, and best adapted to the 
circumstances, that survive. And there is, without 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 311! 


doubt, a large measure of truth in the principle. We 
see that this is the case in the vegetable kingdom, It is 
the plants that are best adapted to the soil, climate, and 
general environment that survive and spread. We see 
the same thing in the animal kingdom. It is those 
animals that are most powerful, and are the best adapted 
to the special surroundings and circumstances, that sur- 
vive and prevail. We see it in the human species itself. 
When a more vigorous race comes into collision with a 
race possessed of less vitality, then, unless the moral 
power of Christianity intervenes to prevent it, the more 
vigorous race tends to push the feebler off the face of 
the earth. Wesee the same thing still more in human 
systems of science, philosophy, government, and the like. 
It is the one with the most power of truth in it, the one best 
fitted to the age, the people, the general environment and 
circumstances that survives. It is, in short, the fittest that 
survives in the struggle ; and the fact that it does survive 
is, as a rule, a tolerably good proof that it is the fittest. 
Now this principle just enunciated tells in favour of 
Christianity. It has been, and still is, superseding other 
systems in the struggle for existence. Its rod swallows 
up their rods. It survives in the struggle, and by its 
very survival it shows itself to be possessed of greater 
power of truth, greater vitality and fitness for humanity. 
We see the fact of this survival very clearly de- 
monstrated when we contemplate the early spread of 


312 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


Christianity. When it entered on the scene of history, 
eighteen centuries ago, it found the world already 
possessed by various religions, It was at once launched 
into a life-and-death struggle for its existence. Every 
one sees from the New Testament that it had a terrible 
contest to maintain at first with the hard and narrow 
Judaism of the age. As it passed beyond its first stage, 
it had to enter on a much more formidable struggle 
with the old paganism of Greece and Rome. At a later 
period it was launched into a similar struggle with the 
strong and wild religion of our old Teutonic ancestors. 
And what was the result? It was that in each case 
Christianity showed itself to be the fittest by its survival 
in the struggle. So complete was its victory in the con- 
test with Greek and Roman and Teutonic paganism, 
not to mention many other less known systems, that it 
drove them out of existence altogether, just as the 
animals of our present geological age have superseded 
the inferior animals of the previous ages. In the present 
day, we know about these obsolete forms of heathenism 
only from ancient literature or the remains of their 
idolatrous service preserved in our museums, just as we 
know about the remains of those earlier but now obsolete 
animals from their remains in the rocks of the earth. 
Clearly Christianity, in its struggles with these ancient 
systems, has triumphantly approved itself by the prin- 
ciple of the survival of the fittest. 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 313 


But it may be said, Are not the original power and 
vitality of Christianity now spent? Is it not waxing 
old, and becoming ready to vanish away, like some of 
the ancient plants and animals referred to? By no 
means. The fact is, that, since the centuries of its 
youth, Christianity has never shown its aggressive power 
and vitality to such a degree as in the present century. 
This is especially demonstrated by the wonderful 
advance that it has made in mission work throughout 
the length and breadth of the world. Within the last 
fifty years or so, we have seen whole groups of islands 
in the South Seas Christianized ; such, for example, 
as the Fiji and the Sandwich Islands. We have seen 
Madagascar furnishing converts by tens of thousands 
every year to the Church, so that there are now in that 
island upwards of 250,000 professing Christians, and the 
progress is still going on. In India proper, in 1851, there 
were only 103,000 native Protestant Christians, whereas 
in 1881 there were 453,000.! Sixty years ago, probably 
there were not ten native Christians in China, and now 
there are 80,000 who bear that sacred name. At the 
beginning of the century there were not more than 
50,000 converts from modern heathenism, and now there 
are about 3,000,000. That is to say, the Christian 
Church during the present century has reclaimed from 


1 Statistical Tables of Protestant Missions in India, Burma, and Ceylon 
(1881), p. xiii. 


314 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


heathenism, and much of it of the grossest type, a 
number nearly equal to three-fourths of the entire popu- 
lation of Scotland, and the work is going on at the 
present time with greater rapidity than at any previous 
portion of the century.! 

We have reason to believe that the spread of 
Christianity in heathen countries, in the present 
age, compares not unfavourably with that of the early 
centuries. It is, of course, difficult to bring this to the 
test in the form of statistics; still an approximation 
may be made which may be instructive and in- 
teresting. Of course, so far as the ancient Church is 
concerned, we cannot possibly attain to exactness, and 
can guard against error only by leaving a sufficiently 
large margin. We do not descend into details, but only 
give results. What, then, are some of the results at 
which competent men and special students of the early 
Christian ages have arrived? Lange, at the close of his 
Commentary on Matthew, estimates that the number of 
professing Christians at A.D. 100 was 500,000, and that 
at the time of Constantine, say A.D. 320, it was 10,000,000.” 
Uhlhorn estimates that at the latter date they formed 
less than one-twelfth of the population of the East, and 
less than one-fifteenth in the West; that is, perhaps 


1 Report of Centenary Conference on Protestant Missions held in London, 
in June 1888, vol. i. p. 153. 
2 Bibelwerk, Matt. xxviii. 16-20. 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 315 


about eight or nine millions.’ Schaff gives a similar 
general estimate. At the close of the first century, ‘the 
estimate of half a million among the one hundred 
millions or more inhabitants of the Roman Empire is 
probably exaggerated. At the time of Constantine the 
number of Christians may have reached ten or twelve 
millions, that is, about cne-tenth of the total population 
of the Roman Empire.’? Gibbon also enters into a 
lengthened discussion of the question, and he comes to 
the conclusion that at the latter period the Christians 
formed about one-twentieth of the population of the 
Empire ; in other words, they amounted to about 
six millions? Dean Milman thinks that Gibbon is 
‘perhaps inclined to underrate’ the relative number of 
the Christians, but believes that ‘with regard to the 
West he is clearly right’* Let us agree with Milman 
that Gibbon’s estimate, and even all those given above, 
are too low, and set down the number of Christians at 
’ the year 320 as 16,000,000, Let us also accept 500,000 
as the estimated number at A.D. 100, and the result is 
that their number doubles every forty-four years. 

Let us now consider how this increase compares with 


1 Kampf des Christenthums, p. 367. 

2 Apostolic Christianity, vol. i. pp. 196-197; Ante-Nicene Christianity, 
vol. i. pp. 22 f. 

3 Decline and Fall, chap. xv. Cf. also Renan, Marc-Auréle, C. Xxv.; 
Charteris, The New Testament Scriptures, pp. 53 ff. 

‘ History of Christianity, vol. li. p. 276, note. 


316 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


the spread of Christianity in the mission field at the 
present day. We select one important field, viz. India, 
including Burmah and Ceylon, partly because it is one 
whose case is somewhat parallel to that of the ancient 
Roman Empire, and partly because we have the most 
trustworthy statistics in regard to mission work in our 
Indian Empire. How, then, do the statistics stand ? 
Confining ourselves solely to the work of Protestant 
missionaries, we find that the number of professing 
Christians brought over from heathenism amounted in 
the aggregate in 1851 to 103,000; in 1861, to 213,000; 
in 1871 to 318,000; and in 1881 to 528,000. And 
what is the rate of increase indicated by these figures ? 
It is, that the Protestant Christians of our Indian 
Empire are doubling every thirteen years or so; and we 
have the best reason for believing that other fields, such 
as Madagascar, and not a few of the South Sea Islands, 
could show an equally satisfactory result. Surely this 
compares not unfavourably with the increase during the 
second and third centuries, when the Christians doubled 
not in every thirteen, but in every forty-four years. In 
other words, modern missions demonstrate that Chris- 
tianity has lost nothing of its ancient regenerating power 
and energy, and is still proving its divinity as much as 
ever by the principle of the survival of the fittest. 


Statistical Tables of Protestant Missions in India, Burma, and Ceylon 
(1881), pp. x. and xiii, 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, 317 


We might even say that we get a more vivid proof 
of the wonderful regenerative and elevating power of 
Christianity in modern mission work than in that of the 
ancient Church. In the early ages it came into contact 
only with the comparatively high civilisation of the 
Roman Empire, and for centuries encountered no such 
degraded peoples as the Esquimaux, the Australians, and 
many of the tribes of Southern and Central Africa, of 
the South Seas, and even of India. But it has en- 
countered such tribes in its modern advance, and has 
demonstrated that it has the capacity of descending to 
the very lowest depths, of meeting the wants of the most 
degraded nations, and of raising them up to the platform 
of Christian life and civilisation. Of this the thrilling 
story of mission work in many of the above-mentioned 
fields, as detailed not merely by missionaries, but by 
other intelligent observers, furnishes a most interesting 
and satisfactory proof. Surely this shows us that the 
vitality and elevating energy of Christianity, far from 
being spent, are as fresh and vigorous as in its early 
dawn, and that it is still possessed of all its youthful 
power of adaptation. 

But in estimating the energy of modern Christianity 
we must also bear in mind that it has not been contend- 
ing merely with low and feeble systems of superstition 
and idolatry. It is engaged in close and deadly contest 
with systems that are among the very highest in the 


318 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


scale of mere human religions. It is face to face in India 
and Japan with Buddhism, which is perhaps the most 
powerful system of idolatrous religion that the world 
has ever seen, and yet it is winning its converts every 
day from its mighty grasp. It is in direct conflict with 
the religion of China, one of the most civilised and con- 
servative of heathen nations, and even in China it is 
receiving converts by hundreds every year within the 
Christian fold. Ithas begun to attack Mohammedanism, 
—a religion sprung in no small measure from itself; and 
notwithstanding the mortal hatred which Moham- 
medans bear to Christianity, and the most barbarous 
and sanguinary laws which visit the convert to the Cross 
with persecution and death, it has won not a few noble 
trophies from the religion of the Crescent. Besides, 
nothing can be more certain than the fact that the days 
of Mohammedanism as a mighty aggressive force are 
numbered, and that both as a religion, a civilisation, and 
a world-power, it is destined to hopeless disintegration 
and collapse in the face of Christianity and Christendom. 
The Crescent of Mohammed is beyond all doubt a 
waning Crescent. In conflict with such modern systems, 
some of them much more powerful than any of the 
ancient world, Christianity is demonstrating itself more 
fully every year to be the fittest and most powerful by 
its survival in the struggle. 

But we may see still more vividly the regenerative 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, 319 


power of Christianity when we contemplate the moral 
transformation which it has effected wherever it reigns. 
It is extremely difficult to conceive, and utterly im- 
possible to represent in books to be read by Christian 
eyes, the unspeakable change which it has produced in the 
moral state of the human race. For the sake of greater 
definiteness we may fix our mind more especially on the 
ancient Roman world. Of course, as a rule, the ordinary 
eye sees only the best of ancient heathenism, the results 
of its high culture, its noble edifices, its peerless works 
of art, its better and purer literature. But every one who 
has looked behind the veil, knows what a hideous spectacle 
lies there concealed. There meets his horrified gaze a 
festering mass of pollution and abomination the most 
unspeakable. Chastity is almost unknown; self-indul- 
gence of the most sensual kind everywhere prevails ; 
lying and deception in trade, bribery and corruption, 
cruelty and oppression, suicide and the reckless waste 
and contempt of human life, leaven the whole com- 
munity. This is not merely the picture drawn by Paul 
in the first chapter of the Romans, but it is the very 
picture portrayed by the satirists and by the more 
sober historians of the ancient world; the picture 
preserved for modern eyes by a singular but awful 
providence in the revelations of buried Pompeii. The 
very gods themselves were sunk in vice, and a man 
cannot well be expected to be better than his god. In 


320 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN: EVIDENCES. 


short, the heathenism of ancient Rome in its more 
degenerate age, shows us just such a deplorable mass of 
reeking corruption as that which our missionaries find 
rampant in heathendom at the present day. And yet 
Christianity succeeded in effecting a radical and incal- 
culable moral change. It was not merely the salt which 
preserved the race from further corruption and from 
rotting off the face of the earth, but the vital power 
which put a new spiritual life into the carcase, which 
first stopped the leprosy, then mastered it, and finally 
made the healthy ‘flesh come again like the flesh of a little 
child” No doubt the morality of Christendom is still 
far short of the Christian ideal ; but as compared with 
that of ancient Rome, not to speak of modern heathen- 
dom, it is high as the heaven is above the earth; and 
this is a fact which is substantially admitted by men 
without as well as by men within the circle of catholic 
Christianity, by men like Lecky as well as men like 
Loring Brace. 

But we see the transcendent moral power of Chris- 
tianity not less in national life and government and 
international relations. We see it in the abolition of 
slavery. In ancient Greece and Rome alike, slavery 
prevailed to an almost incredible extent. In Athens, it 
is said that out of 400,000 inhabitants only 100,000 were 
free citizens, And the case of Rome was somewhat 
similar, for it is calculated that about one-half of the 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 321 


population of the Empire consisted of slaves. But 
Christianity slowly remedied the terrible evil and let 
the oppressed go free. The gladiatorial shows fed the 
Roman thirst for blood with tens of thousands of wasted 
lives every year; but Christianity stepped into the 
arena, and put an end to the horrid cruelty. Woman 
occupied a most degraded position in most parts of 
the ancient world; but Christianity took her by the 
hand, raised her up, and set her by the side of man. 
Marriage was in the later Roman age a matter of mere 
temporary and sensual convenience ; divorce was so easy 
and so frequent that women, it was sarcastically said, 
counted the years by their husbands; but Christianity 
uttered its blessing over the marriage bond and made it 
sacred. Infanticide was a custom common even in 
Greece and Rome; for had not parents an absolute 
right to do what they liked with their own? But Chris- 
tianity took the little children up in her arms and blessed 
them. War was the natural state of things, the most 
honourable life for a man to follow, and it was generally 
carried on with bloody barbarity; but Christianity has 
not only infused its own merciful spirit into it; it has 
greatly lessened the frequency of war by means of diplo- 
macy and arbitration, and by declaring peace and honest 
toil to be in the highest degree right and honourable. 
But why enlarge? Even Plato, the noblest of ancient 


philosophers, in his ideal republic, admits such things 
xX 


322 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


as slavery, the community of women, the exposure of 
infants, and the like. How very different from all this 
the religion of Jesus! How much higher its morality! 
How mighty its spiritual power, which has succeeded in 
crushing out these and similar evils, and in supplanting 
them by their opposite virtues ! 

But another consideration, which shows that Chris- 
tianity is in our day as much as ever the support and 
energetic power of all high morality, is the sad fact that 
the decline of the former sooner or later means the 
decline of the latter. Mere culture or education or 
zesthetic taste, yea, all of them together, are quite inade- 
quate for this purpose. Christianity alone suffices. It 
may no doubt be true that a nation for two or three 
generations may maintain a fairly high morality after 
positive religion has lost its hold’on the faith and heart 
of the people, just as the train may continue to move 
for some time after the engine has been detached, or 
the twilight remain for a while after the sun has set. 
But by and by the train comes toa stand without the 
engine; and so with the continuance of morality after 
the motive power of Christianity has been withdrawn. 
By and by, after the sun has set, the twilight darkens 
into night ; and so with morality after the sun of Chris- 
tianity has gone down. It takes, of course, two or three 
generations to enable us to demonstrate this fact by 
statistics; but such statistics as we have point distinctly 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 323 


in this direction. Luthardt, a distinguished German 
writer, in one of his late volumes, shows very clearly the 
sad results of the prevalence of pantheism and mate- 
rialism in modern Germany. He adduces statistics 
which demonstrate a rapid and fearful increase of crime, 
especially crimes against chastity, and a terrible advance 
in the deepening darkness and intensity of the ‘social 
evil’ His statistics are certainly enough to show that 
where gross materialism prevails, mere culture can no 
more sustain genuine morality and virtue, as distin- 
guished from the outward semblance thereof, than it 
could in the declining days of Rome or in the age of the 
first French Revolution. The mighty spiritual power of 
Christianity is as necessary for this purpose now as ever. 
It and it alone has the strength to support, and the 
motive energy to propagate, true morality in the average 
run of men of which nations are mainly composed.1 

The question even admits of being seriously discussed, 
whether a nation or people can continue to exist without 
a religion. Certainly no such people of any historical 
importance has ever yet existed on the surface of the 
earth. In proportion as religion has declined in any 
nation, morality has decayed; and in proportion as 
morality has decayed, the nation has become rotten, 
honeycombed, and ready to collapse on the first vigorous 
assault from without, or even in course of time from 

1 See Appendix, Note XX. 


324 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


internal decay and hollowness. Past history affords us 
numerous illustrations of the fact from the time of 
ancient Babylon downwards, and, as we have just seen, 
modern history and statistics point in the same direc- 
tion. If it be too much to affirm that ‘there cannot be 
a second generation of an infidel state, for society would 
fall to pieces, we may safely maintain that Professor Flint 
speaks forth the words of truth and soberness when he 
says, ‘The prevalence of atheism in any land must bring 
with it national decay and disaster. Its triumph in our 
land would bring with it, I believe, hopeless national ruin.’! 

Nor does it militate against our present argument to 
object that Christianity has been the cause of not a little 
misery in the world. It could not possibly overthrow 
hoary systems of evil, or tear up ancient and deep-rooted 
vices and customs, without violence and suffering. And 
just as little does it tell against the substance of our 
argument, that many cruelties have been committed in 
the name of our most holy faith. We refer particularly 
to the fearful persecutions and massacres carried on by 
Christians against Jews, infidels, and heathens, and even 
fellow-Christians. These horrible crimes were not the 
outcome of Christianity, but of fallen human nature as yet 
imperfectly Christianized. They were directly contrary 
to the spirit and the teaching of our religion ; and it is 


1See the whole passage, Amti-Theistic Theories, pp. 36 ff. Cf. also 
Drummond, Natural Law-in the Spiritual World, pp. 167 ff. 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 325 


even a powerful argument in favour of its divinity, that 
though it took Christendom eighteen centuries to learn 
the doctrine of religious toleration, yet all the time it 
was there in the New Testament as clear as the sun. 
The crimes referred to sprang not from full Christian 
faith, but from the want of it; and therefore they do 
not prove, as is sometimes supposed, that Christian faith 
is and has ever been only a well-spring of evil. On 
one occasion some one remarked in the hearing of 
Carlyle, that de/zef had done immense evil in the world. 
‘True,’ he replied with vehemence, almost with fury ; 
‘true, belief has done some evil in the world ; but it has 
done all the good that ever was done in it, from the time 
when Moses saw the burning bush, and Jdelteved it to 
be God appointing him to be deliverer of His people, 
down to the last act of belief that you or I executed. 
Good never came from aught else.’! 

From such considerations as the preceding, we see 
that Christianity has been and still is proving its divinity, 
its moral power, and final destiny, by its triumphant 
survival in the struggle for existence. In this respect 
it differs as much from modern speculative systems of 
religion as from those of the past ages. These new and 
rival systems may seem very logical and ingenious; but 
they are earth-born, with nothing but human authority to 
support them. They maydo well enough for the study, the 

1 Froude’s Lie of Thomas Carlyle,.vol. ii. p. 331. 


326 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


easy-chair, the lecture-room, or summer weather; but 
they fail when they come to practical matters of life and 
death. They want the inherent spiritual power of making 
their adherents willing to consecrate themselves to works 
of self-sacrifice, and, if necessary, to martyrdom, for the 
spread of their cause and the welfare of humanity. We 
hear little or nothing of them undertaking benevolent 
and mission work amid the slums at home, or among 
the still more degraded heathen abroad. We never hear 
of any heathen tribes which they have civilised, not to 
say Christianized. They have scarcely even the power 
of organization and self-support, and are more at home 
in trying to break down the walls of Christianity than 
those of vice and heathenism. In decided contrast to 
them, the persistent aggressive energy of Christianity 
shows that the future, the survival in the struggle, and 
the final triumph as the fittest religion for man, belong 
to it and not to them, In the words even of Renan: 
‘The world will be everlastingly religious, and Chris- 
tianity, in a large sense, is the last word of religion, 
Christianity alone remains in possession of a future.’! 

It may be well for us briefly to inquire what are some 
of those elements in Christianity which give to it its 
mighty power and make it ‘the fittest.’ We mean to 
touch on only a few of the more important points. 

One powerful element is to be found in the practical 


1 Revue des deux Mondes, Oct. 1 5, 1860, pp. 790, 770. 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 327 


certainty which Christianity affords us in regard to those 
matters which are of paramount importance to man. 
The soul which is in earnest cannot do otherwise than 
yearn anxiously and intensely after reasonable assurance 
in reference to those matters which may concern its 
welfare for eternity. Is the soul mortal, or is it im- 
mortal? Isthereaheaven? Isthereahell? Does God 
forgive sin, or does He not? If He does, then on what 
terms? Is there any way by which we may be delivered 
first from the guilt, and then from the power and bond- 
age of sin? In regard to questions such as these, human 
philosophies have no certain answer to give, or they 
give answers diametrically opposed to one another. In 
such a state of doubt and dissension Christianity offers 
a real, a well-founded, and a reasonable certainty ; and 
to earnest souls seeking agonizingly after the truth, this 
certainty gives it, of necessity, a vast power over mere 
human speculations, which can only attain at the utmost 
toa ‘perhaps. This reasonable certainty produces in the 
mind of the Christian a true, energetic faith, which is 
always a mighty power in itself; for, as J. S. Mill says, 
‘One person with a delief is a social power equal to 
ninety-nine who have only interests.’ One element of 
the power of Christianity is found in the reasonable 
certainty which produces well-assured faith. 

Another source of its power is to be found in the fact 
that it reaches down into the eternal, and has its well- 


328 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


springs in God. It brings souls into the most direct 
contact with the Fountain of life and power. Human 
systems at the best are only like mere surface wells, 
which penetrate but a little into the ground, and do not 
reach the perennial springs, They do well enough in 
favourable seasons, but in times of burning, withering 
drought they become utterly dry, and fail altogether 
just when they are needed most. But Christianity is like 
the Artesian well, which penetrates away down through 
the layers of rock to the inexhaustible supplies of water 
beneath, and which accordingly keeps springing up with 
undiminished force and abundance at all seasons and 
in all weathers. In other words, Christianity reaches 
down into God, connects the soul with God, and draws 
its life and power and supplies of grace from Him. These 
supplies keep gushing, welling up from the infinite ocean 
beneath, through the ordinances of the Church and the 
means of grace. Inthe devout Christian who is united to 
Christ by faith, the Spirit is as a well of water springing 
up unto everlasting life, quickening, refreshing, cleansing, 
strengthening the soul with all might in the inner man. 
Assuredly another cause of the conquering might of our 
holy religion is to be found in the Spirit of life and power 
which it draws from the eternal source, and which is the 
river the streams whereof make glad the city of our God. 

We must also emphasize the fact that much of this 
power of which we speak arises from the person of 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 329 


Christ, from the incarnation of God and of the moral 
law which we have in Him. The ordinary mind has a 
difficulty in thinking about a God who is a pure, invis- 
ible, formless Spirit; but the incarnation exactly meets 
this need. In Jesus Christ we have one who lives and 
moves before us, and on whom it is easy for us to fasten 
our minds and think. Because of His real humanity, 
we are drawn to Him by the mysterious bonds of human 
sympathy. By means of His holy and beautiful 
character and life, we are strongly attracted to Him by 
all the magic power of holy beauty. In virtue of His 
unselfish love, His. exquisite tenderness, grace, and 
mercy, our heart is taken wholly captive. On account 
of His painful and tragic death, borne for the noblest 
purpose and with the divinest dignity, the soul is drawn 
to Him with the deepest and most romantic interest. In 
Him everything meets which can captivate and fill the 
mind, the heart, the imagination, and make them rest on 
Him with ease and delight. But Heis God; He is the 
moral law. That God, that moral law, of which we 
found it difficult to think in the pure, colourless, abstract 
form, we now find it easy and delightful to think of and ~ 
love as brought before us in the person of Christ. The 
incarnate Son is indeed the very power of God, because 
He meets man’s want of a real incarnation of the in- 
visible God and the abstract moral law. Accordingly, 
Christianity derives much of its power from Him. He 


330 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


is its very fountainhead of spiritual power and life. All 
the grand movements in its history throughout the ages 
are but the throbbings of His heart. All the great Chris- 
tian reformers and workers have drawn their inspiration, 
enthusiasm, and spiritual force from Him. 

But another fact which gives much of its mighty 
power to Christianity, is its adaptation or fitness to meet 
the moral and spiritual wants of man. Human nature 
is a perfect bundle of spiritual wants, and Christianity 
girdles it all round and exactly fits into it on every side. 
When a true soul has been really awakened and sees its 
cuilt, it sighs for pardon; and Christianity presents it 
with a pardon, full and free and righteous. The God- 
awakened man,in his deepest nature, yearns not only 
for pardon but for inward holiness: and Christianity 
meets this want by working in us a new and holy nature 
which enables us to love and practise all the Christian 
graces and virtues freely, and to find our true delight 
therein. We have a natural yearning for a genuine 
friend, around whom our affections and esteem may 
twine, and who may fully satisfy all the insatiable long- 
ings and desires of our heart ; and such we have in 
Jesus, who is the Friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother. And not to enlarge, we have an instinctive 
desire for immortality; and Christianity meets this 
desire by assuring us of a glorious immortality of intel- 
lectual and spiritual perfection and blessedness in the 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, 331 


very presence of the Lord for ever, Just as the crystal 
water flows into all the intricate corners of the intricate 
vessel and fills them up, so Christianity exactly fits into 
and fills up all the manifold wants of our spiritual nature. 
And herein is another secret of its blessed power, and 
not only that, but another proof that it is of God, and 
the one true religion. 

Another source of the overmastering might of Chris- 
tianity consists in the motive power with which it fills 
and possesses the soul. No other religion can supply or 
bring such motive power to bear upon the soul, Weare 
not to think at present of that motive power which 
arises from a healthful dread of hell, or from a strong 
desire after the blessedness of the Christian heaven, 
We are rather to think of the enthusiastic love and 
devotion awakened in the Christian’s heart by the Lord 
Jesus, which form indeed the distinctive motive power of 
our religion. When the faithful soul realizes how much 
it owes to Jesus, it becomes filled of necessity with a 
perfect storm of grateful feeling. When we contemplate 
Jesus leaving glory for us, bearing privation, shame, and 
suffering for us, dying a felon’s death upon the cross for 
us, seeking out us His lost sheep in our wayward, 
wandering days, how can Christian hearts be otherwise 
than consumed with love for Him? When we think 
that He saved us of His own grace, bought us and 
washed us with His own blood; when we think of the 


332 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


awful hell from which He has rescued us, of the glorious 
heaven to which He has brought us, and that He Him- 
self is to be our inheritance for ever, how can Christian 
hearts do otherwise than glow with a holy enthusiasm of 
gratitude to Him? Surely such considerations, when we 
realize them, must kindle the fire of an unquenchable 
love in the soul. And who does not see that this love 
is not only a fire which purifies and burns away all that 
is low and mean in us, but a grand motive power ‘in our 
heart, as a burning fire shut up within our bones, so that 
we become weary with forbearing, and cannot stay’? 
It moves us to shun sin because it crucified the Lord, to 
grow holy like Himself because it pleases Him, to work 
our little best for Him who did His great work so will- 
ingly for us. The enthusiasm of a holy love to Christ, 
which Christianity awakens and feeds, is another secret 
of its marvellous power. 

Nor must we omit to state that the joy with which 
true religion fills the soul as with a heavenly light, is 
another element in its mighty spell. Men sometimes 
speak of Christianity as a gloomy, morose, melancholy 
thing. There never was a greater mistake. From its very 
nature, where it is real it is a religion of peace and joy 
and hope. The soul which has been delivered from hell, 
reconciled to God, and made an heir of heaven, and which 
knows it as it ought, cannot help living in an atmosphere 
of peace and joy and hope. Nay, Christianity inculcates 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.’ 333 


joy as an abiding habit of mind, for it commands us to 
rejoice in the Lord alway, to rejoice evermore. It is not 
Christianity but atheism that is the deeply hopeless, 
melancholy system. Let Professor Clifford, who wan- 
dered into the dark and lonely and dreary wilderness of 
the latter, speak: ‘It cannot be doubted that theistic 
belief is a comfort and solace to those who hold it, and 
that the loss of it is a very painful loss. It cannot be 
doubted, at least, by many of us in this generation, who 
received it in our childhood, and have parted with it 
since with such searching trouble as only cradle-faiths 
can cause. We have seen the spring sun shine out of an 
empty heaven to light up a soulless earth; we have felt 
with utter loneliness that the Great Companion is dead.’ * 
There we see the spirit of atheism, full of sadness and of 
wailing. But Christianity gives us a Father, a Saviour, 
a Brother, a blessed immortality, and a glorious home. 
Its spirit is a spirit of hope and joy ; and the hope and 
joy which it inspires add to its divine power in the world. 
‘The joy of the Lord is its strength.’ 

Another element in the power of Christianity is its 
wonderful capacity of self-adaptation and assimilation. It 
is essentially a constructive and conservative system, and 
only destructive with a view to be truly constructive and 
conservative. It adapts itself alike to all men of every 
clime, of every degree of civilisation, of every form of 


1 Lectures and Essays, vol. ii. p. 247. -See Appendix, Note XXI. 


334 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN ‘EVIDENCES. 


government. It stoops to raise from their degradation 
the Australian and the Hottentot. It meets the case of 
the learned and philosophic sons of Indiaand China. It 
finds itself equally at home under the paternal govern- 
ment of the African chief, the autocracy of the 
Russian Czar, the constitutional monarchy of Britain, 
and the republicanism of America. Whatever it finds 
peculiar, but right and healthful, in national life and 
civilisation, it not only conserves, but works up into 
itself, and assimilates, so as to form a new and special 
type of Christianity particularly adapted to the nation. 
And there can be no doubt that herein lies much of its 
power as compared with Judaism, Mohammedanism, and 
other religions. Every one knows the story of Winfrid, 
the Apostle of Germany, and the sacred oak of Geismar, 
hallowed by dim ages of pagan rites. The mighty spell 
which the tree cast like an awful shadow over the minds 
of the heathen people, proved a powerful entanglement 
to keep them back from embracing Christianity. Win- 
frid saw this, and determined on the bold stroke of 
hewing it down by the root. He did so, and with the 
material he built a little Christian chapel; so that by 
his wise action he not only removed the obstruction and 
broke the spell, but made use of the material and even 
the spell itself for Christian purposes. And this is the 
true spirit of all healthy Christianity. It hews down the 
old and sacred trees, but only to use them for Christian 


PROOF FROM ‘SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 335 


chapels. It takes care not to lose anything that is good 
and healthful in ancient religions, civilisations, and 
nationalities, but preserves it, works it up into the 
national type of Christianity, and turns it to a new and 
noble use. Nay, it even gathers fresh life and strength 
and fruitfulness from the assimilation, as Aaron’s rod 
after the absorption of the rods of the Egyptians budded 
and blossomed and brought forth almonds. There can 
be no doubt that this capacity for adaptation and assimi- 
lation contributes largely to the fitness of Christianity for 
becoming the ultimate religion of the world. 

But once more, and to crown the whole, the irresistible 
power of the Christian religion arises from the fact that 
God is on its side. In the fourth chapter of Revelation, 
the King of kings is represented as sitting on His exalted 
throne, which is surrounded with an emerald rainbow, 
the well-known symbol of covenant grace and mercy. 
As He looks forth upon the affairs of men, He looks at 
them through the emerald rainbow. That is, He looks 
out upon the course of history through the covenant of 
grace and mercy, and directs it all in the interests of this 
blessed covenant. In other words, He regulates history 
and the current of events in the case of the individual, 
the Church, the world, with a view to the interests of 
grace and Christianity. He overrules even persecutions, 
schisms, and heresies in the Church with a view to a 
purer life, greater emulation and activity, a simpler, 


336 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


clearer, and better-balanced theology and teaching. He 
directs the spread of education, science, and commerce 
in the world, and even revolutions and wars, with a view 
to make crooked places straight and rough places plain 
for the advancement of Christianity, and to open up the 
way for the Church to enter in and possess the land for 
Christ. With God upon its side Christianity must sur- 
vive and prevail, until at last it is completely triumphant, 
and the shout ascends from a redeemed humanity, 
‘Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. As 
we look down the future and strain our eyes to behold 
the vision of the latter days, we see the world in the 
summer evening of time lying wrapt all round in the 
light and glory of a universal Christianity, and a ban- 
ner floating in the breeze and waving blessings over 
the nations: but that banner is not the blank flag of 
a know-nothing scepticism; not the black flag of a 
hopeless, materialistic atheism; not the Crescent of 
Mohammed, but the CROSS OF CHRIST. 


In drawing to a close, I wish in parting to say a 
respectful word to the reader. My aim, dear friend, 
throughout these studies has been supremely practical ; 
not to exercise or satisfy merely your logical understand- 
ing, but, if possible, to prepare the way and lead you up to 
a living faith and trust in Christ ; and unless this is accom- 
plished in some degree, their object is lost. In other 


CONCLUSION., SY 


words, it has been my devout wish to take you by the 
hand and lead you up to the gate of the City of God. 
And now I would leave you there alone to knock for 
yourself, with the assurance that the Lord of the City will 
open to every true and honest seeker, and with the prayer 
that you may enter in through the gate into the City. 
Let me respectfully but earnestly remind you that 
there are other capacities in your mind which have to do 
with religion besides the logical intellect. One of these 
is your moral nature, including especially conscience. 
It has to do with God and religion even more directly 
than the pure intellect has. It is much more sensitive 
towards God and divine truth, and can feel in the dark 
where the intellect cannot see. Accordingly, in matters 
of personal religion, it is safer, as a rule, to trust your 
moral nature and conscience than mere logic; for the 
former will often guide you aright when the latter 
stands bewildered and dumb, or even leads astray. 
The conscience is, indeed, the highest summit of the 
soul,—the one which raises itself up farthest towards 
God and heaven, and is freest from clouds and vapours. 
And just as the loftiest Alpine peak retains the light of 
the setting sun long after the plain land and the lower 
ridges are enveloped in the dusky twilight, so conscience 
often retains the light of God when the gloomy night of 
scepticism is setting in upon the intellect. But just as 


the same sublime Alp also receives the light of the 
x 


338 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, 


rising day long before the lower hills and plains, and 
even while they are as yet lying covered with darkness 
and mist; so the conscience, as a rule, receives the 
rising light of God and religion before the intellect, and 
even while the latter is yet in the mists and clouds and 
climmering twilight of scepticism, While intellect ‘in 
the valley stumbles through the mist,’ conscience ‘on 
the mountain top beholds the morn. I pray you to 
recognise this fact. Consult your conscience, your 
moral nature, and not your logical intellect alone. It 
will respond, if only you will honestly listen ; and it will 
reply that you, even you, are a sinner in the eyes of the 
All-holy—a sinner guilty and helpless, and it will impel 
you to cry, ‘What must I do to be saved ?’ 

Let me say that the only satisfactory answer to that 
question must still be that of. the Apostle Paul: 
‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved.’ In other words, the one ‘divinely - authorized 
way is the way of personal faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Even supposing that other ways might perhaps 
save you, if you believe in the possibility of salvation 
at all you must believe that the Christian way, when 
honestly followed out, will certainly save you. But in 
such a matter no wise man ought to peril his all ona 
mere ferhaps, when he can find, and find at hand, a 
method of salvation which is yea and amen, the way of 
personal faith in Christ. 


CONCLUSION. 339 


Do you ask what this faith is? What is the dis- 
tinctive nature and feature of saving faith? It is simply 
this, that it rests on Christ as its object, on Christ as set 
before you in the Gospel, on Christ for your personal 
salvation. You renounce all trust for salvation in self 
or in any arm of flesh, and rest solely, consciously, 
intentionally, abidingly on the Lord Jesus, His person, 
work, and word. When your mind settles down in this 
state as its final attitude, it enters into the condition of 
saving faith. It has that faith which accepts Christ 
as your Covenant Head, Saviour, and Lord; which 
identifies you with Him in His life, and death, and 
righteousness, so that you become a sharer in the bless- 
ing of full and free and instantaneous justification for 
His sake. You have now that faith which unites you 
with Christ as the branch with the vine, with Christ 
the source of all spiritual life and power, holiness and 
activity. ‘This faith puts you into possession first and at 
once of pardon and acceptance, thereafter of increasing 
holiness and spiritual energy, and finally of a blessed 
immortality with Him in heaven. | 

But you also ask how you can awaken and produce 
this saving faith towards Jesus in your soul. You 
cannot work yourself up into it by mere bodily exercise 
or excitement. You cannot get yourself translated into 
it by any mere outward ritualistic charm or spell. You 
cannot vault into it by any grand volition or trans- 


340 STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


cendent effort of mere human will. You can enter it 
only by the reasonable and scriptural way of turning 
your mind towards Christ, while you pray for His Spirit 
to open your eyes and incline your heart to the truth. 
It is the very nature of Jesus and the truth as it is in 
Him, when properly contemplated, to produce faith in 
the soul. Look therefore at Him. Keep Him per- 
sistently before your mind. Try to understand Him. 
Dwell, think, and meditate upon Him, and the different 
features of His life and character, teaching and work. 
Give them the time and the opportunity to bear and tell 
upon your heart. Then, as you do so, you will feel, you 
cannot tell how, your obstinacy giving way, your hard 
heart melting, your interest awakening, faith and trust 
arising, and your soul finally settling down, gently, 
naturally on the Lord Jesus, as your own personal 
Saviour. And in that blessed moment you will enter 
into the position of a justified man, a pardoned and 
accepted son and heir of God, and a citizen of the Holy 
City. A new day will begin to break in upon your 
soul, a day of light and life, of hope and joy; and there- 
after, amid the changes and troubles, the bereavements 
and heart-aches of life, you will find that Christ meets 
all the wants and experiences of your many-sided nature. 
He will turn for you at last the shadow of death into the 
morning ; and, alike in time and eternity, He will prove 
Himself to be all your Salvation and all your Desire. 


APPENDIX. 


ee 


INGOT roel pees! 


STATE OF RELIGION IN ENGLAND IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 


‘ALTHOUGH a brilliant school of divines maintained the 
orthodox doctrines with extraordinary ability, and with 
a fearless confidence that science and severe reasoning 
were on their side; yet a latent scepticism and a wide- 
spread indifference might be everywhere traced among 
the educated classes. There was a common opinion 
that Christianity was untrue but essential to society, and 
that on this ground it should be retained. . . .’ Butler, 
in his preface to his Avzalogy, declared that “it had come 
to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much 
a subject for inquiry; but that it is now at length dis- 
covered to be fictitious.” . . . Addison pronounced it an 
unquestionable truth that there was less “appearance 
of religion in England than in any neighbouring state or 
kingdom,” whether it be Protestant or Catholic; Sir 
John Bernard complained that “it really seems to be 
the fashion for a man to declare himself of no religion,” 
and Montesquieu summed up his observations on English 
life by declaring, no doubt with exaggeration, “that 
there was no religion in England, that the subject, if 
mentioned in society, excited nothing but laughter, and 
that not more than four or five members of the House 
of Commons were regular attendants at church.” ’— 
Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 
vol. il. pp. 529 ff. (chap. ix.). 


342 APPENDIX. 


‘The utter depravity of human nature, the lost con- 
dition of every man who is born into the world, the 
vicarious atonement of Christ, the necessity to salvation 
of a new birth, of faith, of the constant and sustaining 
action of the Divine Spirit in the believer’s soul, are 
doctrines which, in the eyes of the modern evangelical, 
constitute at once the most vital and the most influential 
portions of Christianity, but they are doctrines which 
during the greater part of the eighteenth century were 
seldom heard from a Church of England pulpit’—Jdzd. 


P. 545. 


NOTE II. p. 15. 


THE SCIENTIFIC SPECIALIST NOT NECESSARILY AN 
AUTHORITY IN THEOLOGY OR CRITICISM. 


‘When the human mind has achieved greatness and 
given evidence of extraordinary power in any domain, 
there is a tendency to credit it with similar power in all 
other domains. Thus theologians have found comfort 
and assurance in the thought that Newton dealt with 
the question of revelation, forgetful of the fact that the 
very devotion of his powers, through all the best years 
of his life, to a totally different class of ideas, not to 
speak of any natural disqualification, tended to render 
him less instead of more competent to deal with theo- 
logical and historic questions,—Tyndall, Fragments of 
Sczence, vol. ii. p. 150. 

The above principle surely applies to scientific men 
in the present day, who set themselves up for meta- 
physicians and theologians, as well as to the case of 
Newton. At any rate, it finds an admirable illustration 
in the late controversy between Professor Huxley and 
Dr. Wace in the Vineteenth Century (18809). 


APPENDIX. 343 


NOTE Tile pi! 2d. 


RELIGIOUS TRUTH BEYOND THE REACH OF 
PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 


‘The mere study of physical nature does not carry us 
beyond matter and its processes. Its most elaborate 
methods can give us no apprehension of God, or soul, 
or moral sense. So far as mere physical science can 
discern, “if God had slept a million years, all things 
would be the same.” No telescope or microscope can 
enable us to detect free-will or any other attribute of 
mind. Physical science can only tell us of physical 
objects, physical properties, and physical laws.’—Pro- 
fessor Flint, Aztz-Theistic Theories, p. 106. Cf. The 
Unseen Universe, sect. 221; Harris, Baszs of Theism, 
P- 337: 

‘In the preceding portion of these remarks, we have 
adverted only to that class of truths which are connected 
with external nature, reduced to laws,-——and the evidence 
of sense elaborated by reason into science. But no 
extent of physical investigation can warrant the denzal 
of a distinct order of impressions and convictions, wholly 
different in kind, and affecting that portion of our com- 
pound constitution which we term the moral and the 
spiritual’ —Baden Powell, Order of Nature, p. 276. 
Compare also Essays and Reviews, p. 152, 12th edition. 
So far Powell is correct, but he limits the principle far 
too much in its application. 


NG Darl Voy Deca a4 
THE BIBLE NOT A REVELATION OF SCIENCE. 


‘From a very early period in the history of scientific 
inquiry, it has been more or less clearly recognised that 


344 APPENDIX. 


the Bible is not a science-revelation, but a revelation of 
religious truth and duty, discovering the true ideal and 
destiny of man in fellowship with God. Let us have it 
kept clear on both sides that there is no divine revelation 
of scientific truth. Nature is its own revelation.’ 

‘But what we most need in these days to keep con- 
spicuous, is the true view of the Bible as a professed 
revelation from God. It does not profess to be a 
revelation of facts such as scientific appliances are 
adequate to ascertain, while it does profess to discover 
facts, both as to the universe and as to man, which science 
cannot approach. It is not a history of the earth, but 
it includes within it historical records of events closely 
connected with man’s moral and spiritual wellbeing,’ 

‘From these few statements it may readily appear 
what is the attitude of the Bible towards science. It 
leaves man to his own research for the structure of 
science in all its divisions; it proffers no help in such 
work, but has a range of application quite beyond the 
area traversed by science,—Professor Calderwood, Sczence 
and Religion, pp. 76, 77, 78. 


NOTE V. p. 26. 


EVOLUTION NOT NECESSARILY INCONSISTENT 
WITH THEISM. 


‘Some of the profoundest theologians and ablest 
defenders of religion in the early Church were believers 
in the doctrine of spontaneous generation—which may 
be consistently held in modern times by believers in 
natural and revealed religion. There is really no ground 
for the fears of the timid on the one hand, nor on the 
other hand for the arrogant expectation of the atheist, 
that he will thereby be able to drive God from His 


APPENDIX. 345 


works, Spontaneous generation is not to be understood 
as a generation out of nothing, an event without a cause, 
an affair of caprice or chance. It is a production out of 
pre-existing materials by means of powers existing in 
the materials,—powers very much unknown, working 
only in certain circumstances, and requiring, in order to 
their operation, favourable conditions, assorted by divine 
wisdom. 

‘It is now admitted that Christians may hold, in 
perfect consistency with religion and Genesis, that 
certain layers of rock were formed, not at once by a 
fiat of God, but mediately by water and fire as the 
agents of God. And are they not at liberty to hold, 
always if evidence be produced, that higher plants have 
been developed from lower, and higher brutes from 
lower, according to certain laws of descent, known or 
unknown, working in favourable circumstances? ‘There 
is nothing irreligious in the idea of development properly 
understood.—M ‘Cosh, Christianity and Positivism, pp. 
36, 37. Cf. Row’s Bampton Lectures, p. 134 f.; Harris, 
Lasts of Theism, pp. 504 ff.; Temple’s Bampton Lectures, 
pp. 108, 122. 

‘That the doctrine of evolution is gaining ground over 
the doctrine of special creations we will not deny, but 
the much more general doctrine of a finality?! in things 
is not at all impugned thereby. For the rest, the learned 
and acute defender of evolution under its most recent 
form, Mr. H. Spencer, seems himself to recognise the 
truth of this, when he tells us: “The genesis of an atom 
is no easier to conceive than that of a planet. Indeed, 
far from rendering the universe less mysterious than 
before, it makes a much greater mystery of it. Creation 
by fabrication is much lower than creation by evolution. 
A man can bring a machine together; he cannot make 
a machine that develops itself. That our harmonious 


1M. Janet uses this word, of course, in the common French meaning of 
‘final cause or purpose.’ 


346 APPENDIX, 


universe should formerly have existed potentially in the 
state of diffused matter, without form, and that it should 
gradually have attained its present organization, is much 
more wonderful than its formation, according to the 
artificial method supposed by the vulgar, would be. Those 
who consider it legitimate to argue from phenomena to 
noumena, have good right to maintain that the nebular 
hypothesis implies a primary cause as superior to the 
mechanical God of Paley as that is to the fetish of the 
savage.” ’*—Janet, Final Causes, p. 223 (Clark). See 
also pp. 268 f. 

‘It follows that theism is completely disinterested in 
the properly scientific question (of evolution), as more- 
over it ought to be; for, as we have often said, so far as 
science contents itself with verifying facts, grouping them 
together, and drawing from them the consequences 
required by its methods, it is sovereign. Let Darwinian 
evolution be demonstrated or not, theism has nothing to 
lose thereby: let the conditions of existence be deter- 
mined as we may wish, the question of cause and origin 
remains intact. Darwinism has been accepted by men 
who believe in spirit, as is shown by the capital work 
of Mr. A. R. Wallace on Natural Selection. It is well 
known that Mr. Wallace, who had arrived, by his own 
investigations, at a solution identical with that of Darwin, 
even before the latter had formulated and systematically 
expounded his view, has not less established in the most 
categorical manner that natural selection implies finality, 
at least as much as the theory of successive creations.-— 
Pressensé, Les Origines, p. 180. 

1 The italics are mine. Perhaps it may be well for me to give the foot- 
note appended by M. Janet to the above extract: ‘Let us remark in 
passing that the God of Paley is not a mechanical God. As it is 
impossible to speak without a metaphor, it is certain that when one 
compares the machines of nature to those of man, we are apt to speak of 
God asa mechanician. So, at other times, one talks of the divine Poet, 
the great Geometrician, the great Lawgiver, the sovereign Judge, etc. 


These are modes of expression, and if they are forbidden, we must cease 
to speak of these things,’ 


APPENDIX. 347 


‘The present disputes concerning the origin of the 
human species we regard with indifference. Once we 
have grasped the fact that every operation in nature, 
down even to the most minute, takes place only under 
divine assistance, the greater dignity of man and his 
nearer relation to God can be injuriously affected by no 
method of origination of the race which the testimony of 
experience may compel us to adopt. It is therefore, 
from the religious point of view, a matter of indiffer- 
ence what the investigation of nature may educe on this 
point. 

‘The development of simpler organisms into higher is 
without doubt indisputable, though the more exact mode 
of this may be perhaps beyond our reach; but the 
irreligious tendency, so industriously propagated, to 
regard this development only as a series of chances, is 
utterly untenable. It is ¢heoretically untenable.’ —Lotze, 
Grundsziige der Religionsphilosophie, p. 78. 

As it may be interesting to see what was one of 
Darwin’s latest utterances on the consistency of evolu- 
tion with theism, I append the following letter, written 
in May 1879 to Mr. John Fordyce, and printed by him 
in his Aspects of Scepticism, p. 190 :— 

‘It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be 
an ardent theist and an evolutionist. You are right 
about Kingsley. Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, is 
another case in point. What my own views may be isa 
question of no consequence to any one except myself. 
But, as you ask, I may state that my judgment often 
fluctuates. Moreover, whether a man deserves to be 
called a theist depends on the definition of the term, 
which is much too large a subject for a note. In my 
most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist 
in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think 
that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but 
not always, an agnostic would be the most correct 
description of my state of mind.’ 


348 APPENDIX. 


NOTE VIL. p. 28. 


EVOLUTION ONLY AN HYPOTHESIS AND NOT AN 
ASCERTAINED TRUTH OF SCIENCE. 


The following extracts bearing (1) on the statement 
that evolution is as yet only an hypothesis, (2) on the 
descent of man from the ape by mere natural evolution, 
and (3) on the time requisite for the development 
hypothesis, are taken from authorities of the first rank. 

(1) That evolution is as yet only an hypothesis and 
not an ascertained scientific fact :— | 

Professor VIRCHOW, Berlin:—‘This generatio equivoca 
[by which is meant spontaneous generation], which has 
been so often contested and so often contradicted, is 
nevertheless always meeting us afresh. To be sure, we 
know not a single posztive fact to prove that a generatio 
@quivoca has ever been made, that there has ever been 
a case of procreation in this way, that inorganic masses 
—such as the firm of Carbon & Co.—have ever spon- 
taneously developed themselves into organic masses. 
No one has ever seen a generatio e@quivoca effected ; 
and whoever supposes that it has occurred is contra- 
dicted by the naturalist, and not merely by the theologian. 
. . . We must acknowledge that it has not yet been 
proved.’—Virchow, The Freedom of Science in the Modern 
State, pp. 36 f. (2nd edition), 

Louis PASTEUR, Member of the Academy of Sciences, 
Paris :—‘ There is no case known at the present day in 
which we can affirm that microscopic creatures have 
come into existence without germs, without parents like 
themselves. Those who pretend that they do have 
been the dupes of illusions, of experiments badly 
performed, vitiated by mistakes which they have failed to 
perceive, or which they have not known how to avoid.’ — 
Revue des Cours scientifiques, 23 Avril 1864, p. 265; 
Article, ‘Des Générations spontanées,’ 


APPENDIX. 349 


Professor TYNDALL :—‘I here affirm that no shred of 
trustworthy experimental testimony exists to prove that 
life in our day has ever appeared independently of ante- 
cedent life—Wzneteenth Century, March 1878, p. 507. 
‘Every attempt made in our day to generate life inde-. 
pendently of antecedent life has utterly broken down.’ 
—Fragments of Science, Preface to the 6th edition, p. vi. 

Professor HuxLeYy:—‘Not only is the kind of 
evidence adduced in favour of abiogenesis [spontaneous 
generation] logically insufficient to furnish proof of its 
occurrence, but it may be stated as a well-based induc- 
tion, that the more careful the investigator, and the 
more complete his mastery over the endless practical 
difficulties which surround experimentation on this 
subject, the more certain are his experiments to give a 
negative result’ Again, he says: ‘The fact is, that at 
the present moment there is not a shadow of trust- 
worthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does take place, 
or has taken place, within the historic period during 
which existence of life on the globe is recorded.’— 
Encyclopedia Britannica; 9th edition, article on 
‘ Biology.’ 

(2) On the descent of man from the ape by mere 
natural evolution :— 

Professor VIRCHOW, Berlin:—‘ You are aware that I 
am now specially engaged in the study of anthropology, 
but Iam bound to declare that every positive advance 
which we have made in the province of prehistoric 
anthropology has actually removed us further from the 
proof of such a connection [of man with the ape]... 
When we study the fossil man of the quaternary period, 
who must, of course, have stood comparatively near to 
our primitive ancestors in the order of descent, or rather 
of ascent, we find always a man, just such men as 
are now. .. . The old troglodytes, pile-villagers, and 
bog-people, prove to be quite a respectable society. 
They have heads so large that many a living person 


350 APPENDIX. 


would be only too happy to possess such ... Nay, if 
we gather together the whole sum of the fossil men 
hitherto known, and put them parallel with those of the 
present time, we can decidedly pronounce that there are 
among living men a much larger number of individuals 
who show a relatively inferior type than there are 
among the fossils known up to this time... Not a 
single fossil skull of an ape or an “ape-man” has yet 
been found that could really have belonged to a human 
being. Every addition to the amount of objects, which 
we have attained as materials for discussion, has removed 
us farther from the hypothesis propounded.’—Virchow, 
The Freedom of Science in the Modern State (2nd 
edition), pp. 60, 62, 63. 

His conclusion is : ‘ WE CANNOT TEACH, WE CANNOT 
PRONOUNCE IT TO BEA CONQUEST OF SCIENCE, THAT 
MAN DESCENDS FROM THE APE OR ANY OTHER 
ANIMAL.’—/d7d. p. 62. In the Preface (p. vi.), he says: 
‘With a few individual exceptions, this protest has met 
with a cordial assent from German naturalists.’ 

A. RUSSEL WALLACE:—‘The few remains yet 
known of prehistoric man do not indicate any material 
diminution in the size of the brain-case. A Swiss skull 
of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen, 
corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the 
present day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a 
larger circumference than the average ; and its capacity 
indicating actual mass of brain, is estimated to have 
been not less than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average 
of existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps 
the oldest known, and which, according to Sir John 
Lubbock, “there seems no doubt was really contem- 
porary with the mammoth and the cave-bear,” is yet, 
according to Professor Huxley, “a fair average skull, 
which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might 
have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.” Of 
the cave-men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly 


APPENDIX, 351 


contemporary with the reindeer in the south of France, 
Professor Paul Broca says: “The great capacity of the 
brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine 
elliptical form of the anterior part of the profile of the 
skull, are incontestable characteristics of superiority, 
such as we are accustomed to meet with in civilised 
races.” ’—Wallace, Contributions to the Theory of Natural 
Selection, pp. 336 f. 

Professor DU BOIS-REYMOND, Berlin :—‘ At a certain 
period of the development of life on the globe, an epoch 
of which we do not know the date, there arose a thing 
new and hitherto unheard of, a thing as incompre- 
hensible as the essence of matter and force. The thread 
of our intelligence of nature, which mounts up to that 
infinitely distant time, is broken, and we find ourselves 
face to face with an impassable abyss. That new and 
incomprehensible phenomenon is thought.—Du Bois- 
Reymond, La Revue sctentifigue, 10 Octobre 1874, p. 341. 

(3) On the time requisite for the development hypo- 
thesis :— 

‘The subject [how long the earth has been habitable 
by plants and animals such as we see now] has been 
taken up very carefully within the last few years by 
Sir William Thomson, and the brief résumé I shall give 
of his results contains nearly all that is accurately and 
definitely acquired to science upon the subject. He 
divides his arguments upon it into three heads. The 
first is an argument from the internal heat of the earth ; 
the second is from the tidal retardation of the earth’s 
rotation ; and the third is from the sun’s temperature. 

‘Each of these arguments is quite independent of the 
other two, and is—for all tend to something about the 
same—to the effect that ten millions of years is about 
the utmost that can be allowed, from the physical point 
of view, for all the changes that have taken place on the 
earth’s surface since vegetable life. of the lowest known 
form was capable of existing there, | 


352 APPENDIX. 


‘But I daresay many of you are acquainted with the 
speculations of Lyell and others, especially of Darwin, 
who tell us that even for a comparatively brief portion 
of recent geological history three hundred millions of 
years will not suffice! We say so much the worse for 


geology as at present understood by its chief authori-— 
ties; for physical considerations, from various inde- 


pendent points of view, render it utterly impossible that 
more than ten or fifteen millions of years can be 
granted.’—Professor Tait, Recent Advances in Physical 
Scvence, pp. 165 ff. Cf. Croll, Climate and T Te LTS 


NOTE VII. p. 70. 
HODGE AND BAXTER IN REGARD TO INSPIRATION. 


The Church doctrine of plenary inspiration ‘denies 
that the sacred writers were merely partially inspired ; it 
asserts that they were fully inspired as to all that they 
teach, whether of doctrine or fact. This of course does 
not imply that the sacred writers were infallible except 
for the special purpose for which they were employed. 
They were not imbued with plenary knowledge. As to 
all matters of science, philosophy, and _ history, they 
stood on the same level with their contemporaries. 
They were infallible only as teachers, and when acting 
as the spokesmen of God. Their inspiration no more 
made them astronomers than it made them agriculturists, 
Isaiah was infallible in his predictions, although he 
shared with his countrymen the views then prevalent as 
to the mechanism of the universe. Paul could not err in 
anything he taught, although he could not recollect how 


¢ 


many persons he had baptized in Corinth’— Hodge, ‘ 


Systematic Theology, vol. i. p. 165, 


APPENDIX. 353 


‘Those men who think that the human imperfections of 
the writers [of the Bible] do extend further, and may 
appear in some by-passages of chronology or history 
which are no proper part of the rule of faith and life, do not 
hereby destroy the Christian cause; for God might enable 
His apostles to an infallible recording and preaching of 
the gospel, even all things necessary to salvation, though 
He had not made them infallible in every by-passage and 
circumstance, any more than they were indefectible in life. 

‘As for them that say, “I can believe no man in any- 
thing who is mistaken in one thing, at least, as infallible,” 
they speak against common sense and reason : for a man 
may be infallibly acquainted with some things who is not 
so with all... . A lawyer may infallibly tell you whether 
your cause be good or bad, in the main, who yet may 
misreport some circumstances in the opening of it. A 
physician, in his historical observations, may partly err 
as a historian in some circumstances, and yet be infallible 
as a physician in some plain cases, which belong directly 
to his art. I do not believe that any man can prove the 
least error in the Holy Scripture in any point according 
to its true intent and meaning; but, if he could, the 
gospel, as a rule of faith and life, in things necessary to 
salvation, might nevertheless be proved infallible by all 
the evidence before given.—Baxter, The Reasons of the 
Christian Religion, Part II. c. x., Objection 17. Cf. also 
The Catechising of Families, c. vi., Q. and A. II. 


NOTE VIII. p. 83. 


QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT FOUND 
. IN THE FATHERS. 
In looking into the early Christian writers for quota- 
tions from the New Testament, we must not expect them 
Z 


354 APPENDIX. 


always to quote with perfect, or even modern exactness. 
They had no concordances, no convenient books such as 
we have, and no divisions into chapters and verses. As 
a rule we must expect them to quote from memory, and 
therefore with all the little inaccuracies of quotations of 
this kind. 

It is in this very matter that the author of Supernatural 
Religion makes one of his grand mistakes as a practical 
critic. He seems almost to expect that the Fathers 
should have habitually quoted with all the accuracy of 
the modern recluse student, who has his concordance at 
hand, and turns up every verse before he writes it down ; 
and because they do not so quote, he rashly infers that 
they must quote from Gospels different from those which 
we now possess. But nothing can be more unreal than 
such a view. He has only to attend a prayer-meeting 
or simple service conducted by any working minister, 
who prays without a prayer-book and speaks without a 
manuscript, in order to have an illustration of the true 
state of the case. He will find men in such circum- 
stances habitually quoting Scripture inaccurately as to 
the words, and repeating the same inaccuracies from 
time to time. But this does not prove in the least that 
they draw their quotations from another source than the 
Authorized English Version. 

On one occasion, after the publication of the work just 
mentioned, a company of ten city ministers happened to 
be present in my house, and in the course of conversation 
we fell upon the discussion of this author’s mode of treat- 
ing quotations. Attention was especially drawn to the 
use which he made of small inaccuracies, and the con- 
clusions which he drew from them. One of the company 
was strongly impressed with the fact that similar phe- 
nomena might be met with over and over again in every 
Presbyterian service in the city every Lord’s day, and 
suggested a very simple test. It was agreed that every 
one of the company should write down the apostolic 


APPENDIX. Se 


benediction in the very form in which he was accustomed 
to give it in the Church services, We did so, and the 
result was found to be, that not two of the ten gave it 
in exactly the same words, and not one of the ten gave 
it in the exact words of the apostle (2 Cor. xiii. 14). 
Here there was not only variation, but the same varia- 
tion repeated from service to service. But this did not 
prove that there were ten different sources whence the 
benediction was drawn. The man who has not shut him- 
self up in his study all his life, but has had a little 
experience of practical Christian work, and has at the 
same time a little healthy common sense, will be pre- 
pared to expect such inaccuracy of quotation, more or 
less. He will have no difficulty in discounting it at 
its proper value; it will cause him no perplexity, and 
assuredly he will never think of requiring a new Gospel 
to account for every new inaccuracy. Indeed, we meet 
with similar inexactness in the quotations which the 
writers of the New Testament make from the Old Testa- 
ment, and we can scarcely expect to find a different 
state of things in the early Christian authors. 

I may add the following statement from a very high 
authority: ‘The Fathers were better theologians than 
critics ; they frequently quoted loosely or from memory, 
often no more of a passage than their immediate purpose 
required ; and what they actually wrote has been found 
peculiarly liable to change on the part of copyists and 
unskilful editors. . . . In [many] cases, the same author 
perpetually cites the selfsame text under two or more 
various forms ; and in the Gospels it is often impossible 
to determine to which of the three earlier ones reference 
is made.”—Scrivener, Plain Introduction to the Criticism 
of the New Testament, 3rd edition, pp. 416 f. Cf. Sanday, 
The Gospels in the Second Century, c. ii. 


356. APPENDIX. 


NO LESIX por; 
J. S. MILL ON MIRACLES AS A ‘VIOLATION OF LAW, 


‘It will be said, however, that if these [miracles] be 
violations of law, then law is violated every time that 
any outward effect is produced by a voluntary act of a 
human being. Human volition is constantly modifying 
natural phenomena, not by violating their laws, but by 
using their laws. Why may not divine volition do the 
same? The power of volitions over phenomena is itself 
a law, and one of the earliest known and acknowledged 
laws of nature. It is true, the human will exercises power 
over objects in general indirectly, through the direct 
power which it possesses only over the human muscles. 
God, however, has direct power not merely over one 
thing, but over all the objects which He has made. 
There is, therefore, no more a supposition of violation of 
law in supposing that events are produced, prevented, 
or modified by God’s action, than in the supposition of 
their being produced, prevented, ‘or modified by man’s 
action. Both are equally in the course of nature, both 
equally consistent with what we know of the government 
of all things by law. 

‘Those who thus argue are mostly believers in free- 
will, and maintain that every human volition originates 
a new chain of causation, of which it is itself the com- 
mencing link, not connected by invariable sequence with 
any anterior fact. Even, therefore, if divine interposition 
did constitute a breaking in upon the connected chain of 
events, by the introduction of a new originating cause 
without root in the past, this would be no reason for dis- 
crediting it, since every human act of volition does pre- 
cisely the same. If the one is a breach of law, so are the 
others, In fact, the reign of law does not extend to the 
origination of volition. . . . The alleged [above] analogy 


APPENDIX. a7 


holds good : but what it proves is only what I have from 
the first maintained —that divine interference with 
nature could be proved if we had the same sort of evi- 
dence for it which we have for human interference.’— 
Mill, Three Essays, pp. 226 ff. 


NOTE X. p. 179. 
THE MODE OF DIVINE INTERVENTION IN MIRACLES. 


‘The continuance of the creation is not conceivable 
without the action of the WILL which created its actual 
elements, and which alone can furnish the ground of 
their reciprocal action. 

‘We must affirm that every process of reciprocal 
action in nature, however insignificant, is possible only 
through the continual co-operation of the one true 
Reality, which in religion we call “God.” Accordingly 
we cannot reject the continual active influence (Hznzzr- 
kung) of God upon the course of nature, because of the 
theoretical objection that the order of nature cannot be 
interfered with. 

‘It is not correct to say that a miracle involves “ the 
suspension of the laws of nature.” Its peculiarity con- 
sists in this, that it really subjects itself to these, but 
with other proportions, magnitudes, and values in the 
co-operating elements than belonged to them by mere 
previous nature. 

‘When a miracle takes place, the divine influence does 
not aim at producing a change in the general laws of 
nature. We have much rather reason to hold that these 
laws must maintain their validity unchanged during the 
whole period of the world’s existence. But an actual 
course of nature does not consist merely of general laws, 
which do not exist for themselves at all. On the con- 


358 APPENDIX. 


trary, it rather consists of innumerable elements, endowed 
with power of different kinds and measures, elements 
which are subordinate to the laws of nature. What these 
elements are and what their special condition at any 
time may be,—that is determined not by the laws of 
nature, but by the plax of that world which God, out of 
numerous possible world, has called into realization. 
Consequently, if this special plan [or idea] of the world 
demands a change in the nature of the elements, there is 
nothing whatever to hinder such an interference. 

‘Accordingly [in a miracle] God works by an imme- 
diate influence which changes the zzner nature of things, 
so that while they work according to the same general 
laws, they nevertheless bring about the miraculous event, 
which they would zot have produced without His influ- 
ence.’ — Lotze, Grundsziige der Religionsphilosophie, pp. 
59, 60, 61. 

That is, the continuance of nature and its operations 
depends directly and continually on the will of God. 
Miracles are therefore possible. But they are not a 
violation of the laws of nature. On the contrary, these 
laws remain the same. But God has direct access to 
the original elements which obey these laws, to change 
their inner nature and condition, and the force or power 
inherent in them. These elements so changed or modi- 
fied continue to work according to the laws of nature, but 
in virtue of the change or modification they produce the 
miracle. In other words, the point where the divine 
will directly intervenes is not at the laws, but at the 
elements or forces which obey these laws while they 
bring about the miracle. Cf. also Lotze, Wikrokosmus, 
vol. ii. pp. 52 and 54; Dorner, Christliche Glaubenslehre, 
vol. i. pp. 603 ff. 

‘We are thus led to believe that there exists now an 
invisible order of things intimately connected with the 
present, and capable of acting energetically upon it ; for, 
in truth, the energy of the present system is to be looked 


a 


APPENDIX. 350 


upon as originally derived from the invisible universe, 
while the forces which give rise to transmutations of 
energy probably take their origin in the same region. 

‘We have now reached a stage from which we can 
very easily dispose of any scientific difficulty regarding 
miracles. For if the invisible was able to produce the 
present visible universe with all its energy, it could, 
of course, @ fortiori, very easily produce such transmuta- 
tions of energy from the one universe into the other as 
would account for the events which took place in Judza 
[at the advent of our Lord]. Those events are therefore 
no longer to be regarded as absolute breaks of continuity, 
a thing which we have agreed to consider impossible, 
but only as the result of a peculiar action of the invisible 
upon the visible universe. 

‘It appears to us as almost self-evident, that Christ, 
if He came to us from the invisible world, could hardly 
(with reverence be it spoken) have done so without some 
peculiar sort of communication being established be- 
tween the two worlds.’—Professors B. Stewart and P. G. 
Tait, Zhe Unseen Universe, pp. 199, 247, 248 (1oth 
edition). 


NOTE XI. p. 195. 


ISAAC TAYLOR ON THE ARGUMENT FROM 
CONGRUITY. 


‘But is it not “reasoning in a circle” thus to believe 
the miracles because the religion is felt to be from 
heaven, and to believe the religion because it has been 
attested by miracles? Grant it that this zs reasoning in 
a circle, when thus formally stated; but it does not 
follow that therefore the reasoning is not valid. A 
misapprehension on this ground has too easily been 
admitted, as well on the side of those who have con- 


360 APPENDIX. 


ducted the Christian argument as with those who have 
impugned it. A sophism, boldly obtruded on the one 
side, has been timidly dealt with on the other, 

‘The very firmest of our convictions come to us in 
this same mode,—that is, not in the way of a sequence 
of evidences, following each other as links in a chain, 
and carrying with them the conclusion ; but in the way 
of the CONGRUITY of co-ordinate evidences, meeting or 
collapsing in the conclusion. This is not the same thing 
as what is called “cumulative proof,” nor is it proof derived 
from the coincidence of facts. Those impressions which 
command the reason and the feelings in the most impera- 
tive manner, and which in fact we find it impossible to 
resist, are the result of the meeting of congruous elements; 
they are the product of causes which, ¢hough independent, 
are felt so to fit the one to the other, that each as soon 
as tt ts seen tn combination authenticates the other ; and, 
in allowing the two to carry our convictions, we are not 
yielding to the sophism which consists in alternately 
putting the premise [and conclusion] in the place of each 
other, but are recognising a principle which is always 
true in the very structure of the human mind. 

‘Let the case be this—that you have to do with one 
who offers to your eye his credentials—-his diploma, duly 
signed and sealed, and which declare him to be a Per- 
sonage of the highest rank. All seems genuine in these 
evidences. At the same time, the style and tone, the 
air and behaviour, of this Personage, and all that he says, 
and what he informs you of, and the instructions he gives 
you, are in every respect consistent with his pretensions, 
as set forth in the instrument which he brings with him. 
It is not in such a case that you alternately believe his 
credentials to be genuine, éecause his deportment and 
his language are becoming to his alleged rank; and 
then, that you yield to the impression which has been 
made upon your feelings by his deportment, decause you 
have already admitted the credentials to be true. Your 


APPENDIX. 361 


belief is the product of a simultaneous accordance of the 
two species of proof: it is a combined force that carries 
conviction ; it is not a succession of proofs in line. 

‘The same force of congruity, not a catena of proofs, 
gives us the most trustworthy of those impressions upon 
the strength of which we act in the daily occasions of 
life ; and it is the same Law of Belief which rules us also 
in the highest of all arguments—that which issues in a 
devout regard to Him, by and through whom all things 
are. On this same ground, where logic halts, an instinc- 
tive reasoning prevails, which takes its force from the 
confluence of lines of reasoning’—Isaac Taylor, Zhe 
Restoration of Belief, pp. 94 f. 


NOTE XII. p. 196. 
MIRACLES NATURALLY TO BE EXPECTED OF CHRIST. 


‘We could not conceive of [Christ] as not doing such 
works ; and those to whom we presented Him as Lord 
and Saviour might very well answer, Strange that one 
should come to deliver men from the bondage of nature 
which was crushing them, and yet Himself have been 
subject to its heaviest laws,— Himself “ Wonderful” (Isa. 
ix. 6), and yet His appearance accompanied by no ana- 
logous wonders in nature,—claiming to be the Life, and 
yet Himself helpless in the encounter with death ; how- 
ever much He may have promised in word, never realiz- 
ing any part of His promises in deed ; giving nothing in 
hand, no first-fruits of power, no pledges of greater things 
tocome. They would have aright to ask, “Why did 
He give no signs that He came to connect the visible 
with the invisible world?”’—Trench, Zhe Muracles of 
our Lord, pp. 102 f. 


362 APPENDIX. 


NOTE XIII. p. 224. 


ALLEGED EVIDENTIAL UNIMPORTANCE OF THE 
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 


‘M. Prudot, in his work La Résurrection de Jésus 
Christ, p. 299, gives a declaration signed at a general 
conference of pastors and elders of the French Protestant 
Church, held in Paris A.D. 1865, which contains the 
following statement :— 

‘“The undersigned pastors and laymen, considering 
that the modern religious conscience, instructed in the 
school of Jesus Christ Himself, and slowly developed by 
eighteen centuries of Christian education, has learned, 
on the one side, not to make the divinity of the Master’s 
teaching depend upon His bodily reappearances; on 
the other, to consider as independent of this fact the 
certainty of eternal life, in such a manner that faith 
henceforth rests, not upon the perilous arguments of 
critical erudition unapproachable to simple believers, but’ 
upon the evidence of the truth itself: 

‘“ Declare that, divided as they are among themselves 
upon the historical question, they frankly acknowledge 
the right of distinguishing between this question and 
Christianity itself, and of founding the living and simple 
demonstration of faith upon the agreement of the holy 
word of Jesus Christ with the principles and needs of 
the human soul.” ’—Professor Milligan, The Resurrection 
of our Lord, p. 259. | 

“It is difficult now, whether we look at the first rise of 
Christianity or at its later history, to admit that it hangs 
by a thread, as St. Paul declares, logically attached to 
the testimony of Cephas, and the Twelve, and the Five 
Hundred.—WNatural Religion, p. 253. 


“APPENDIX. 363 


NOTE XIV. p. 245. 


THE THEORY OF PROBABILITIES APPLIED TO THE 
EVIDENCE FOR CHRIST’S RESURRECTION. 


It may be of importance to some minds that we 
should attempt to represent by the mathematical 
‘Theory of Probabilities’ what are the chances that the 
witnesses to the risen Saviour were deceived by their 
senses. Of course, any attempt of the kind can only be 
an approximation, an illustration and aid to thought 
rather than a result mathematically exact. 

The Law of Probabilities bearing on the case is thus 
laid down by Todhunter in his Algebra: (722) ‘If there 
be any number of zudependent events, the probability 
that they will all happen is the product of their respec- 
tive probabilities of happening.’ To make this clear by 
a simple illustration, let us suppose that we have a bag 
with a hundred balls in it, of which one is white and 
ninety-nine are black. The chance that we draw the 
white ball at the first trial is only I to 100, or as it is 
represented arithmetically, y45. The chance that we 
draw the white ball twice in succession is found by 
multiplying together the chance of drawing it the first 
time, which is 445, by the chance of drawing it the 
second time, which is, of course, also yy. In other 
words, the chance of drawing the white ball the first and 
second times in succession is ~dy X tp Of robom %e F 
to 10,000. The chance of drawing it three times in suc- 
cession is only I to 1,000,000, Ze. thy X 1b6 X rdo OF 
tyobooo: %In short, we get the ultimate chance by 
multiplying the original chance into itself the same 
number of times as the white ball is supposed to be 
drawn in succession. More briefly, the chance of 
drawing it times in succession will be (}o)”. : 

Now it is extremely easy to apply this principle to 


364 APPENDIX. 


the case of the witnesses of the risen Saviour. The only - 
difficulty here is to be found in the calculation of the 
original chance that any one witness could be deceived. 
We may safely say that our eyesight in ordinarily 
favourable circumstances does not deceive us once in a 
million times. Let us say, however, that it does so once 
in a thousand times. That is, the chance that we may 
be deceived by our eyesight in fully favourable circum- 
stances is I to 1000, Of y545. We may with equal 
safety make the same assumption in regard to our sense 
of hearing. It does not in fully favourable circumstances 
deceive us once in a million times; but let us say once 
in a thousand times. That is, the chance that we are 
deceived by our hearing in the circumstances described 
is as I to 1000, or qbo. Now, if we take a case in 
which we have the concurrent testimony of both our 
eyes and ears, the chance that they are both deceived is 
the product of the two chances, or yglsg X tolg9, Which 
IS yy9d,009: In other words, the chance that both eyes 
and ears should be deceived is only I to 1,000,000, and 
this is vastly more than the truth. 

Let us now apply this to the witnesses to our 
Lord’s resurrection mentioned in 1 Cor. xv. 4-7. These 
witnesses saw and heard Christ, had the testimony of 
both their eyes and ears. The probability, therefore, 
that any one of these witnesses was deceived is only 
I to 1,000,000, 2.2. 99,059: The probability that two 
were deceived is of course pogh.o00 X roobooo OF 
1,000,000,000,000' hat is, the chance that two of them 
were deceived is only I to 1,000,000,000,000, etc. But 
there are really twelve apostolic witnesses distinctly 
mentioned, most of whom saw the Lord at least twice. 
What then is the chance that all the twelve were 
deceived? To find the answer we must multiply 
T,000,000 into itself 12 times, 24. (zo5h5 90)! This, of 
course, gives a fraction whose numerator is 1 and whose 

* Cf, Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects, p. 341. 


APPENDIX. 365 


denominator is 1 followed by 72 ciphers. That is, the 
chance that the twelve apostolic witnesses were deceived 
is only as 1 to the number which consists of 1 with 
72 ciphers attached. If we take in the testimony of the 
‘more than five hundred brethren’ on the same terms, 
the result is vastly more overwhelming. We have now 
512 witnesses at the least who saw and heard the risen 
Lord. The chance that any one of them could be 
deceived is, as we have seen, only y,59),000; COn- 
sequently the chance that all of them could be deceived 
is (rooba00) 2& the product of ;59$.990 multiplied 
into itself 512 times, which gives a fraction whose 
numerator is I and its denominator I with 3072 ciphers 
attached. In other words, the chance that all of them 
could be deceived is only as 1 to the number which 
consists of 1 followed by 3072 ciphers, a number which 
it would take more than two pages of this appendix to 
express. 

That is to say, the chance that the disciples and the 
five hundred were deceived as to the appearance of 
Christ is practically nothing ; the probability that they 
were right and actually saw the Lord is practically the 
highest certainty. And Strauss says: ‘There is no 
occasion to doubt that the Apostle Paul had heard this 
[about the appearances] from Peter, James, and perhaps 
from others concerned (comp. Gal. i. 18 ff, ii. 9), and 
that all of these, and even the five hundred, were firmly 
convinced that they had seen Jesus who had been dead, 
and alive again’—Mew Life of Jesus, vol. 1. p. 400. 
Surely all this points most clearly to the utter im- 
probability of the hypothesis of visions which were the 
outcome of mere hallucination. 


366 APPENDIX. 


NOTE XV, ‘p. ‘254; 
HASE ON THE SOCRATES OF XENOPHON AND PLATO. 


‘The Socrates of Xenophon is different from the 
Socrates of Plato. Each has grasped that side which 
was to him the nearest and most congenial. Only from 
both representations conjoined can we recognise the 
true Socrates. The graphic simplicity of Xenophon 
carries with it the full impress of the truth of that which 
he relates. Nevertheless, this Socrates who moves about 
in the narrow circle of moral and political representa- 
tions is not the complete Socrates, the wisest man of 
Greece, who called forth the great revolution in the 
minds of his people. On the other hand, the Platonic 
Socrates is much better fitted to be the creator of the 
new period of Greek philosophy, and accordingly appears 
as the Attic Logos, as having brought down the wisdom 
of heaven to the earth.—Hase, Geschichte Jesu, p. 61; 
from the German, quoted in Schaff’s History of Apos- 
tolic Christianity, vol, ii. p. 695. Cf. Stanley, Hzstory of 
the Jewish Church, Lecture xlvi. 


NOTE XVI. p. 258. 


THE TRULY JUST MAN AS DESCRIBED IN 
PLATO’S ‘ REPUBLIC.’ 


It may not be out of place here to remind the reader 
of Plato's well-known description of the truly just or 
righteous man, as given in his Republic. After having 
finished the picture of the unjust man, he continues :— 

‘Such being our unjust man, let us, in pursuance of 
the argument, place the just man by his side—a man 


APPENDIX. 367 


of true simplicity and nobleness, resolved, as A¢schylus 
says, not to seem, but to be good. We must certainly 
take away the seeming; for if he be thought to be a 
just man, he will have honours and gifts on the strength 
of this reputation, so that it will be uncertain whether it 
is for justice’ sake, or for the sake of the gifts and 
honours, that he is what he is. Yes, we must strip him 
bare of everything but justice, and make his whole case 
the reverse of the former. _ Without being guilty of one 
unjust act, let him have the worst reputation for injustice, 
so that his virtue may be thoroughly tested, and shown 
to be proof against infamy and all its consequences ; 
and let him go on till the day of his death, stedfast in: 
his justice, but with a lifelong reputation for injustice. 

‘After describing the men [just and unjust] as we 
have done, there will be no further difficulty, I imagine, 
in proceeding to sketch the kind of life which awaits 
them respectively. They will say that in such a 
situation the just man will be scourged, racked, fettered, 
will have his eyes burnt out, and at last, after suffering 
every kind of torture, will be crucified. — Repudlic, 
Book ii.; Davies and Vaughan. 

If ever this test of the truly righteous man was 
fulfilled to the letter, it was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, 
‘that Just One,’ 


NOTE XVII. p. 250. 
- TESTIMONIES TO THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 


In the following pages I venture to gather together a 
few of the testimonies of eminent negative or anti- 
supernaturalist writers to the moral character of Jesus. 
Of course these writers do not all occupy exactly the 
same position, some of them like Keim and Ewald, 


368 APPENDIX. 


taking up a more favourable and friendly position ; and 
others, like Strauss in the last stage of his religious 
aberration, a position of extreme negation. It is in- 
structive to contemplate the impression made by Christ 
upon the minds of upright and honourable men, who 
feel themselves unhappily constrained to take up a 
position outside of catholic Christianity, or even dis- 
tinctly antagonistic to it. | 

I may state that the reader will find in Professor 
Schaff’s book, The Person of Christ,a few of the testi- 
monies given below, and a number of others in addition. 
I had all but finished this collection before I came 
across Dr, Schaff’s interesting work. 


(1) Strauss. 


‘If we ask how this harmonious mental constitution 
had come to exist in Jesus, there is nowhere in the 
accounts of His life that lie before us any intimation of 
severe mental struggles from which it proceeded... . 
In all those natures which were not purified until they 
had gone through struggles and violent disruption 
(think only of a Paul, an Augustine, and a Luther), the 
shadowy colours of this exist for ever; and something 
harsh, severe, and gloomy clings to them all their lives; 
but of this in Jesus no trace is found. Jesus appears as 
a beautiful nature from the first, which had only to 
develop itself out of itself, to become more clearly 
conscious of itself, ever firmer in itself, but not to change 
and begin a new life’—NMew Life of Fesus, vol. i. pp. 
282 f. 

‘Among these improvers of the ideal of humanity, 
Jesus stands, at all events, in the first class. He intro- 
duced features into it which were wanting to it before, 
or had continued undeveloped; reduced the dimensions 
of others which prevented its universal application ; im- 
ported into it by the religious aspect which He gave it 


APPENDIX, 369 


a more lofty consecration, and bestowed upon it, by 
embodying it in His own person, the most vital warmth ; 
while the Religious Society which took its rise from 
Him provided for this ideal the widest acceptance 
among mankind.’ —Wew Life of Fesus, vol. ii. p. 437. 

It is right to state that Strauss held that there were 
‘defects’ in Jesus, in regard, for example, to His teach- 
ing concerning man’s relationship to the state, trade 
and art, citizenship, and ‘the elegancies of life’! Cf. 
New Life of Fesus, vol. it. p. 438. 


(2) Keim, 


‘The question concerning the religious personality of 
Jesus leads us into the mysterious. Is it reality or is it a 
mere expression, if we call this virtuous, God-connected 
life the noblest blossom of a noble tree, the crown of the 
cedar of Israel? In a dry and barren age, a full and 
abundant life; among falling ruins, a construction ; 
among broken natures, one upright and strong; among 
souls empty of God and God-abandoned, a son of God ; 
among the sad and despairing, a joyous, hopeful, generous 
personality ; among slaves, a freeman; among sinners, 
a Holy One; in this contradiction to the facts of the age, 
in this gigantic elevation over the depressed, flat, low 
level of the century ; in this transmutation of stagnation, 
retrogression, and fatal sickliness into progress, health, 
the power and colour of eternal youth; finally, in 
this eminent distinction of His activity, His purity, 
His nearness to God, He makes, for new and end- 
less centuries, which ‘through Him have conquered 
stagnation and retrogression, the impression of mysteri- 
ous loneliness, superhuman miracle, divine creation..— 
Geschichte Fesu von Nazara, vol. iii. p. 662. 

‘There has been in the midst of us a true man, in 
whom the divine seed which is deposited in the bosom 
of human nature, by a miracle of divine power, has ex- 

ZA 


370 APPENDIX. 


panded to perfection. The innate communion of man 
with God has reached its consummation in Him, in a 
manner unique and valid for evermore. He is the ideal 
man, foreseen and loved of God from all eternity as the 
crown of the creation; in the contemplation of whom all 
the desires of the love of God the Creator are satisfied, 
because in the heart and face of that human Person He 
sees Himself.’— Der geschichtliche Christus, p. 198; 
quoted by Godet, Conférences Apologétiques, vi. p. 6. 


(3) Ewald. 


Of many passages which might be quoted from his 
Life and Times of Christ, the following may suffice. 
He speaks of Christ as one to whom ‘not the smallest 
actual sin attached,’ and says :— 

‘He brought the invincible gladness, strength, and 
activity of the purest divine love, pervading all perception 
no less than all action, fulfilling all the good laws 
already in existence, and not less alive to every new 
fact of knowledge and every new divine duty, authen- 
ticating itself to the world most distinctly in government, 
work, assistance, and guidance, but also in all obedience, 
self-limitation,and all self-sacrifice. Thus, He became the 
Son of God as no one had hitherto been, in a mortal 
body and in a fleeting space of time, the purest reflection. 
and the most perfect image of the Eternal Himself. 
Thus He became the Word of God, speaking from God 
by His human word no less than by His whole appear- 
ing and work; and thus declaring to the world by an 
overwhelming force, an eternal, indelible clearness such 
as no one before had equalled and no one after sur- 
passed, God’s most hidden mind, and indeed the very 
spirit of His activity itself... . Is perfection in what 
is humanly imperfect, undying immortality in what is 
perishably mortal, possible? He shows that it is, and 
proves it as nothing else has done; and will eternally 


APPENDIX. 371 


show and prove it to all those who do not flee from His 
light. . . . How far does Christ stand even above these 
greatest ones out of Israel [Socrates, Buddha, Confucius]! 
And if the kingdom of the two latter nevertheless still 
endures so wonderfully long, what is to be expected 
from the duration and stability of Hzs kingdom !’ 

‘O Christ, what after all these centuries, with all its 
ignoring and misdeeming of Thee, is the world of to-day 
seeking after and affecting? They who are Thine know 
Thee, as they always in the past perceived, and also in 
all the future will always perceive, that Thou art the 
sole unfailing instrument of the salvation of this world 
which history has brought to it’—Hzstory of Israel, 
vol. vi. pp. 453 f. English translation (Longmans, 


Green, & Co.). 
(4) Rousseau. 


‘Can it be that He whose history the gospel relates is 
but a man? Is that the tone of an enthusiast or an 
ambitious sectary ? What sweetness, what purity in His 
manners! What touching grace in His instructions! 
What elevation in Hismaxims! What profound wisdom 
in His discourses! What presence of mind, what acute- 
ness, what justness in His replies! What command 
over His passions! Where is the man, where is the 
sage, who can act, suffer, and die without weakness and 
without ostentation ? When Plato paints his imaginary 
righteous man, covered with all the opprobrium of 
crime, and worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he paints 
feature for feature Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so 
striking that all the Fathers felt it, and it is impossible 
to mistake it. What prejudice, what blindness must we 
have, to dare to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the 
Son of Mary? What adistance the one is from the 
other! Socrates, dying without pain, without ignominy, 
easily sustained his character to the close; and if that 


B72 APPENDIX. 


easy death had not honoured his life, one might have 
doubted whether Socrates with all his genius was any- 
thing more than a sophist. They tell us he invented 
morality: others had put it into practice before he lived. 
He had but to say what they had done: he had but 
to reduce their example into the form of precepts. 
Aristides had been just before Socrates declared what 
justice was; Leonidas had died for his country before 
Socrates made patriotism a duty ; Sparta was temperate 
before Socrates praised sobriety ; before he had defined 
virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where 
did Jesus learn among His people that pure and elevated 
morality of which He alone has given us the precepts 
and the example? From the bosom of the most bigoted 
fanaticism, the highest wisdom makes itself heard, and 
the simplicity of the most heroic virtues honoured the 
vilest of all nations.. The death of Socrates, philoso- 
phizing tranquilly with his friends, is the gentlest one 
could wish: that of Jesus expiring in anguish, reviled, 
mocked, cursed of a whole people, is the most horrible 
that one can fear. Socrates in taking the cup of poison 
blesses him who presents it weeping; Jesus in the 
midst of terrible agony, prays for His infuriated 
executioners. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are 
those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of 
a God. Shall we say that the gospel history is a mere 
invention? My’ friend, it is not so that men invent; 
and the facts concerning Socrates, of which no one 
entertains a doubt, are less attested than those concern- 
ing Jesus Christ. In reality this supposition is only to 
shift the difficulty a step farther back, not to banish it. 
It would be more inconceivable that several men should 
have united to fabricate that book, than that a single 
person should have furnished the subject of it. Jewish 
authors would never have invented either that style 
or that morality; and the gospel has marks of truth so 
great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the inventor 


APPENDIX. 373 


of it would be more astonishing than the hero. —Emile, 
Book iv. pp. 369 f. (Firmin-Didot). 


(5) Renan. 


‘They—Sakya-Mouni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis of 
Assisi, St. Augustine—felt the divine in themselves. In 
the front rank of this great family of the true sons of 
God we must place Jesus. Jesus has no visions: God 
does not speak to Him from without: God is in 
Him: He feels Himself with God, and He draws from 
His own heart what He says about His Father. He 
lives in the bosom of God by a direct communication 
at every moment: He does not see Him, but He hears 
Him without the need of thunder and the burning bush 
like Moses, of a revealing tempest like Job, of an oracle 
like the ancient Greek sages, of a familiar genius like 
Socrates, or of the angel Gabriel like Mahomet... . He 
believes Himself in direct relation with God, He believes 
Himself the Son of God. The highest consciousness of 
God which has existed in the bosom of humanity was 
that of Jesus. —Vze de Jésus, p. 75, 12th edition. 

‘Whatever may be the transformations of dogma, 
Jesus will remain the Creator of pure sentiment: the 
Sermon on the Mount will never be surpassed. Any 
revolution will only connect us in religion more closely 
with that grand intellectual and moral line at the head 
of which shines the name of Jesus.’ —J0zd. p. 447. 

‘Jesus is the highest of those pillars which show to 
man whence he comes and whither he ought to tend. In 
Him is concentrated all that is good and elevated in our 


nature. . .. He found His very life in His Father, and 
in the divine mission which He believed it to be His duty 
to fulfil. . . . Whatever may be the unexpected pheno- 


mena of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His 
worship will renew its youth for ever; His story will call 
forth tears without end; His sufferings will melt the 


374 APPENDIX. 


noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that among the 
sons of men there is none greater than Jesus,—Vze de 


Jésus, pp. 457 ff. 


(6) Keshub Chunder Sen. 


This eloquent Hindu, who died in 1884, was the well- 
known leader of the Brahmo-Somaj, or Indian theistic 
movement. Speaking of Christ, he says :— 

‘He was the son of a humble carpenter, and He 
laboured in connection with His ministry only three 
short years,—do not these simple facts conclusively 
prove, when viewed in reference to the vast amount of 
influence He has exercised on the world, that greatness 
dwelt in Jesus? Poor and illiterate, brought up in 
Nazareth —a village notorious for its corruption— 
under demoralizing influences, His associates the lowest 
mechanics and fishermen, from whom He could receive 
not a single ray of enlightenment, He rose superior to 
all outward circumstances by the force of His innate 
greatness, and grew in wisdom, faith, and piety by medi- 
tation and prayer, and with the inspiration of the 
Divine Spirit working within Him. Though all the 
external conditions of His life were against Him, He 
rose above them with the strength of the Lord, and with 
almost superhuman wisdom and energy, taught those 
sublime truths, and performed those moral wonders, 
for which succeeding ages have paid Him the tribute 
of gratitude and admiration, Verily He was above 
ordinary humanity. Sent by Providence in order to 
reform and regenerate mankind, He received from 
Providence the wisdom and the power for that great 
work.—Keshub Chunder Sen, Lectures and Tracts, pp. 
9 f. (Strahan). 

‘The two fundamental doctrines of gospel ethics 
which stand out prominently above all others, and give 
it its peculiar grandeur and its pre-eminent excellence, 


APPENDIX. 375 


are, in my opinion, the doctrines of forgiveness and self- 
sacrifice ; and it is in these we perceive the moral great- 
ness of Christ. These golden maxims how beautifully 
He preached, how nobly He lived! What moral serenity 
and sweetness pervade His life! What extraordinary 
tenderness and humility—what lamblike meekness and 
simplicity! His heart was full of mercy and forgiving 
kindness ; friends and foes shared His charity and love. 
And yet, on the other hand, how resolute, firm, and 
unyielding in His adherence to truth! He feared no 
mortal man, and braved even death itself for the sake 
of truth and God. Verily, when we read His life, His 
meekness, like the soft moon, ravishes the heart, and 
bathes it in a flood of serene light; but when we come 
to the grand consummation of His career, His death 
on the cross, behold how He shines as the sun in its 
meridian splendour !’—Jdzd. pp. 37 f. 


(7) Theodore Parker. 


‘Now here we see a young man, but little more than 
thirty years old, with no advantage of position ; the son 
and companion of rude people; born in a town whose 
inhabitants were wicked to a proverb ; of a nation above 
all others distinguished for their superstition, for national 
pride, exaltation of themselves and contempt for all 
others ; in an age of singular corruption, when the sub- 
stance of religion had faded out from the mind of its 
anointed ministers, and sin had spread wide among a 
people turbulent, oppressed, and downtrodden; a man 
ridiculed for His lack of knowledge, in this nation of 
forms, of hypocritical priests and corrupt people, falls 
back on simple morality, simple religion, unites in Him- 
self the sublimest precepts and divinest practices, thus 
more than realizing the dream of prophets and sages ; 
rises free from so many prejudices of His age, nation, or 
sect ; gives free range to the Spirit of God in His breast ; 


376 APPENDIX. 


sets aside the law, sacred and time-honoured as it was, 
its forms, its sacrifices, its temple, and its priests ; puts 
away the doctors of the law, subtle, learned, irrefragable, 
and pours out doctrines, beautiful as light, sublime as 
heaven, and true as God. —Dvscourse of Matters pertain- 
ing to Religion, p. 195 (Triibner & Co.). 

‘That mightiest heart that ever beat, stirred by the 
Spirit of God, how it wrought in His bosom! What 
words of rebuke, of counsel, comfort, admonition, pro- 
mise, hope, did He pour out ; words that stir the soul as 
summer dews call up the faint and sickly grass! What 
profound instruction in His proverbs and discourses ; 
what wisdom in His homely sayings, so rich with Jewish 
life ; what deep divinity of soul in His prayers, His action, 
sympathy, resignation! Persecution comes, He bears it: 
contempt ; it is nothing to Him. —J/did. p. 197. 

‘He stands alone, serene in awful loveliness, not fear- 
ing the roar of the street, the hiss of the temple, the 
contempt of His townsmen, the coldness of this disciple, 
the treachery of that ; who still bore up, had freest com- 
munion when all alone; was deserted, never forsaken ; 
betrayed, but still safe ; crucified, but all the more trium- 
phant. This was the victory of the Soul; a Man of the 
highest type. Blessed be God that so much manliness 
has been lived out, and stands there yet,a lasting monu- 
ment to mark how high the tides of divine life have 
risen in the human world. ... Here was the greatest 
soul of the sons of men; aman of genius for religion ; 
one before whom the majestic mind of Grecian sages and 
of Hebrew seers must vail its face. What man, what 
sect, what church has mastered His noblest thought !’— 
Lbtd. p. 200. 


(8) J. S. Mill. 


‘Above all, the most valuable part of the effect on 
the character, which Christianity has produced by hold- 


APPENDIX. a7 


ing up in a Divine Person a standard of excellence, and 
a model for imitation, is available even to the absolute 
unbeliever, and can nevermore be lost tohumanity. For 
it is Christ, rather than God, whom Christianity has 
held up to believers as the pattern of perfection for 
humanity. It is the God incarnate, more than the God 
of the Jews or of Nature, who being idealized has taken 
so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind. And 
whatever else may be taken away from us by rational 
criticism, Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more 
unlike all His precursors than all His followers, even 
those who had the direct benefit of His personal teach- 
ing. It is of no use to say that Christ as exhibited in 
the Gospels is not historical, and that we know not how 
much of what is admirable has been superadded by the 
tradition of His followers. The tradition of followers 
suffices to insert any number of marvels, and may have 
inserted all the miracles which He is reputed to have 
wrought. But who among His disciples or among their 
proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed 
to Jesus or of imagining the life and character revealed 
in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; 
as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyn- 
crasies were of a totally different sort; still less the early 
Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident than 
that the good which was in them was all derived, as they 
always professed it was derived, from the higher source. 
.... About the ‘life and sayings of Jesus there is a 
stamp of personal originality combined with profundity 
of insight, which, if we abandon the idle expectation of 
finding scientific precision where something very differ- 
ent was aimed at, must place the Prophet of Nazareth, 
even in the estimation of those who have no belief in 
His inspiration, in the very first rank of men of sublime 
genius of whom our species can boast. When this pre- 
eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably 
the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that mission 


ST a APPENDIX. 


who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to 
have made a bad choice in pitching upon this man as the 
ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even 
now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a 
better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract 
into the concrete than to endeavour to live so that Christ 
would approve our life’—TZhree Essays on Religion, 
Pp. 253 ff 
(9) W. R. Greg. 

‘It is difficult, without exhausting superlatives even to 
unexpressive and wearisome satiety, to do justice to our 
intense love, reverence, and admiration for the character 
and teaching of Jesus. We regard Him not as the 
perfection of the intellectual or philosophical mind, but 
as the perfection of the spiritual character, as surpassing 
all men of all times in the closeness and depth of His 
communion with the Father. In reading His sayings, 
we feel that we are holding converse with the wisest, 
purest, noblest being that ever clothed thought in the 
poor language of humanity. In studying His life, we 
feel that we are following the footsteps of the highest 
ideal yet presented to us on the earth. —Creed of Chris- 
tendom, vol. il. p. 168. 

‘Such a one we believe Jesus to be, the most exalted 
religious genius whom God ever sent upon the earth; 
in Himself an embodied revelation; humanity in its 
divinest phase, “God manifest in the flesh,” according to 
Eastern hyperbole; an exemplar vouchsafed, in an early 
age of the world, of what man may and should become, 
in the course of ages, in his progress towards the 
realization of his destiny; an individual gifted with a 
grand, clear intellect, a noble soul, a fine organization, 
marvellous moral intuitions, and a perfectly-balanced 
moral being; and who by virtue of those endowments 
saw further than all other men— 


** Beyond the verge of that blue sky 
Where God’s sublimest secrets lie ;” 


APPENDIX. 379 


an earnest not only of what humanity may be, but of 
what it will be, when the most perfected races shall bear 
the same relations to the finest minds of existing times, 
as these now bear to the Bushmen or Esquimaux. He 
was, as Parker beautifully expresses it, ‘“‘ The possibility 
of the race made real.” ’—J/dzd.. vol. il. p. 177. 

‘I believe that [Jesus] was the greatest and purest of 
those great and pure souls to whom glorious intuitions 
are granted, or in whom they rise, or on whom they flow. 
I believe that these intuitions were to Him convictions, 
certainties, and that His belief in His mission to teach 
them was a part of Him.—Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1883, 
p. 202; quotation from a letter. 


(10) W. £. A. Lecky, 


‘The later Stoics had often united their notions of 
excellence in an ideal sage, and Epictetus had even 
urged his disciples to set before them some man of 
surpassing excellence, and to imagine him continually 
near them; but the utmost the Stoic ideal could become 
was a model for imitation, and the admiration it inspired 
could never deepen into affection. It was reserved for 
Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, 
which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has 
filled the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has 
shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, 
temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the 
highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to 
its practice; and has exerted so deep an influence that 
it may be truly said, that the simple record of three 
short years of active life has done more to regenerate 
and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of 
philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists. This 
has indeed been the well-spring of whatever has been 
best and purest in the Christian life. Amid all the sins 


380 APPENDIX. 


and failings, amid all the priestcraft and persecution 
and fanaticism, that have defaced the Church, it has 
preserved, in the character and example of its Founder, 
an enduring principle of regeneration.’ — History of 
Luropean Morals, vol. ii. pp. 8, 9 (5th edition). 


(11) Author of ‘ Supernatural Religion: 


‘The teaching of Jesus carried morality to the sub- 
Jimest point attained or even attainable by humanity. 
The influence of His spiritual religion has been 
rendered doubly great by the unparalleled purity and 
elevation of His own character. Surpassing in His 
sublime symplicity and earnestness the moral grandeur 
of Sakya Muni, and putting to the blush the sometimes 
sullied, though generally admirable teaching of Socrates 
and Plato and the whole round of Greek philosophers, 
He presented the rare spectacle of a life, so far as we 
can estimate it, uniformly noble and consistent with His 
own lofty principles, so that the “Imitation of Christ ” 
has become almost the final word in the preaching of 
His religion, and must continue to be one of the most 
powerful elements of its permanence. . . . Whilst all 
previous systems had sought to purify the stream, [ His 
system] demanded the purification of the fountain. It 
placed the evil thought on a par with the evil action. 
Such morality based upon the earnest and intelligent 
acceptance of divine law, and perfect recognition of the 
brotherhood of man, is the highest conceivable by 
humanity ; and although its power and influence must 
augment with the increase of enlightenment, it is itself 
beyond development, consisting as it does of principles 
unlimited in their range and inexhaustible in ,their 
application. —Supernatural Religion, vol. ii. pp. 487 f. 
(4th edition), 


APPENDIX. 381 


bras N apoleon Bonaparte. 


In the following we have the testimony of a genius of 
a totally different kind :— 

‘One of Napoleon’s Generals was one day discussing 
in his presence the divinity of our Lord. Napoleon 
remarked: “I know men, General, and I can tell you 
that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see 
a resemblance between Christ and the founders of 
empires, the conquerors, and gods of other religions, 
The resemblance does not exist. 

‘« Any one who has a true knowledge of things and 
experience of men will cut short the question as I do. 
Who amongst us, General, looking at the worship of 
different nations, is not able to say to the different 
authors of those religions,—No, you are neither gods 
nor the agents of the Deity ; you have no mission from 
heaven; you are formed of the same slime as other 
mortals? 

‘““Tn Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, Mahomet, I see 
lawgivers, but nothing which reveals the Deity. It is 
not so with Christ. Everything in Him amazes me: 
His mind is bevond me, and His will confounds me. 
There is no possible term of comparison between Him 
and anything of this world. Heisa Being apart. His 
birth, His life, His death, the profundity of His doctrine, 
which reaches the height of difficulty and which is yet 
its most admirable solution, the singularity of this 

mysterious Being, His empire, His course across ages 
and kingdoms,—all is prodigy, a mystery too deep, too 
sacred, and which plunges me into reveries from which 
I can find no escape; a mystery which is here under 
my eyes, which I cannot deny, and neither can I 
explain. Here I see nothing of man. Christ speaks, 
and from that time generations are His by ties more 
strict, more intimate than those of blood: by a union 
more sacred, more imperative than any other could be. 


382 . APPENDIX. 


... What a gulf between my misery and the eternal 
reign of Christ, preached, praised, loved, adored, living 
in the whole universe! Is this to die? Is it not rather 
to live? Such is the death of Christ—the death of 
God.”’—O’Meara, Napoleon at St. Helena, vol. ii. pp. 
353 ff. (1888). 

The above quotation is taken from a brochure which 
I have not been able to procure or consult, entitled 
Sentiment de Napoléon sur la Divinité de Jésus Christ. 
Pensées recueillies a Ste. Héléne par M. le Comte de 
Montholon et publiges par M. le Chevalier de Beauterne. 
This brochure, however, I find must simply be the Fifth 
Chapter of Beauterne’s book, Sentiment de Napoléon ler 
sur le Christianisme (new edition, Paris, 1868), which I 
therefore give as the original authority; the above 
extracts being found on pp. 87, 88, 93, 94, 118. As 
bearing on the trustworthiness of Beauterne’s work, I 
may add that General Monthclon, who was present at 
the conversations therein recorded, writes from Ham, 
on May 30, 1841, to that author: “I have read with 
lively interest your brochure, entitled The Sentiments of 
Napoleon on the Divinity of Jesus Christ,and I do not 
think it would be possible to express more accurately 
the religious belief of the Emperor.”—Senz. sur le Chris- 
tianisme, pp. viil., 156 f. 


(13) Jean Paul Richter. 


Perhaps I cannot do better than close this series of 
testimonies with the following extracts from that ‘strange 
and tumultuous’ genius, Jean Paul Richter :— 

‘Jesus, the purest among the mighty, the mightiest 
among the pure, with His pierced hand raised empires 
off their hinges, turned the stream of the centuries out of 
its channel, and still commands the ages. . . . Only one 
spirit of surpassing power of heart stands alone, like the 
universe, by the side of God. For there stepped once 


APPENDIX. 383 


upoh the earth a unique being, who merely by the 
omnipotence of holiness subdued strange ages, and 
founded an eternity peculiarly His own. Blooming 
softly, obedient as the sunflower, yet burning and all- 
attracting as the sun, with His own gentle might He 
moved and directed Himself and peoples and centuries 
at the same time towards Him who is the original and 
universal Sun. That is the gentle spirit whom we call 
Jesus Christ. If He really existed, then there is a 
Providence, or He Himself were Providence. Tranquil 
teaching and tranquil dying was the only music by 
which this higher Orpheus tamed wild men and charmed 
rocks harmoniously into cities.—Jean Paul Richter, 
Ueber den Gott in der Geschichte und im Leben; Sammt- 
liche Werke, vol. xxv. pp. 53, 60 (Berlin, 1862). 

Surely in view of such testimonies, all of them from 
men of the highest ability or literary repute, and most 
of them from men decidedly antagonistic to catholic 
Christianity, we may safely say without offence, in the 
words of Holy Scripture, ‘ Their rock is not as our Rock, 
even our enemies themselves being judges.’ 


NOTE XVII, p:-377; 


A PERFECT MORAL CHARACTER CONTRARY TO 
EXPERIENCE. 


‘Should a traveller, returning from a far country, 
bring us an account of men wholly different from any 
with whom we were ever acquainted,—men who were 
entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge; who 
knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity, and public 
spirit,— we should immediately from these circumstances 
detect the falsehood, and prove him a liar, with the same 
certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories 


384 APPENDIX. 


of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies. —Hume, 
Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, section viii. 

That is, according to Hume, such perfect holiness as 
that of Christ is not to be found in mere human nature, 
is in short contrary to ‘ordinary experience. Since, 
however, in His case, it is a fact, it must therefore be 
supernatural in the emphatic sense. 


NOTE, XIX! pe280. 


THE INDEPENDENCE AND CONVERGENCE OF THE 
CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


‘There is one quality or condition comprehended in 
these mixed and varied evidences of our religion which 
deserves to be further considered by itself; a condition 
highly characteristic of its truth, and, indeed, replete 
with the strongest confirmation of it. The condition is 
this, that the evidences are so exceedingly dissimilar in 
their several descriptions. They are not necessarily 
connected in their origin; they do not infer each the 
other; they are connected only in the subject which 
they conspire to attest. This independence of the com- 
ponent members of the argument is a material considera- 
tion. Perhaps it has not been urged in the defences of 
Christianity with the force it is entitled to. It affords, 
however, a very decisive criterion of truth, as the follow- 
ing remarks may serve to show. 

‘If man’s contrivance, or if the favour of accident 
could have given to Christianity any of its apparent 
testimonies — either its miracles or its prophecies, its 
morals, or its propagation, or, if I may so speak, its 
Founder—there could be no room to believe, nor even 
to imagine, that all these appearances of great credibility 
could be united together by any such causes. Ifa suc- 


APPENDIX. 385 


cessful craft could have contrived its public miracles, or 
so much as the pretence of them, it required another 
kind of craft and new resources to provide and adapt its 
prophecies to the same object. Further, it demanded 
not only a different art, but a totally opposite character, 
to conceive and promulgate its admirable morals. Again, 
the achievement of its propagation, in defiance of the 
powers and terrors of the world, implied a new energy 
of personal genius and other qualities of action, than 
any concurring in the work before. Lastly, the model 
of the life of its Founder, in the very description of it, 
is a work of so much originality and wisdom as could be 
the offspring only of consummate powers of invention; 
though, to speak more fairly to the case, it seems, by an 
intuitive evidence, as if it could never have been even 
devised, but must have come from the life and reality of 
some perfect excellence of virtue, impossible to be taken 
from, or confounded with, the fictions of ingenuity. But 
the hypothesis sinks under its incredibility. For each 
of these suppositions of contrivance being arbitrary, as it 
certainly is, and unsupported, the climax of them is an 
extravagance. And if the imbecility of art is foiled in 
the hypothesis, the combinations of accident are too vain 
to be thought of.’— Davison, Dzscourses on Prophecy, 
pp. 29 f. (4th edition). 

“We have a system of proof; an evidence drawn from 
testimonies differing in kind but conspiring in effect, 
and combining together to an accumulated demonstra- 
tion; in which neither the conclusiveness of any of the 
branches of the argument taken alone, is charged with 
the whole weight of the question; nor the imputed 
insufficiency of any of them, when so taken, can touch 
the validity of the collective inference. —J/0dzd. pp. 34, 35. 


2B 


386 APPENDIX. 


IN CARON ep. 1328) 


STATISTICS BEARING ON THE ALLEGED DECLINE OF 
MORALITY IN GERMANY. 


‘It is statistically demonstrated that immorality 
(Unzucht) has increased in a terrible degree of late years. 
During the last six years, in the eight older provinces of 
Prussia, crimes against morality have risen from 1072 to 
2378—that is, an increase of 121 per cent. In the jury 
courts, before which only the more aggravated cases of 
criminality are brought up for decision, the following 
are the numbers of sentences passed for crimes against 
morality: 1871, 501; 1872, 614; 1873, 752; 1874, 982; 
1875, 1013; 1876, 1382; 1877, 1975; in other words, an 
increase of 294 per cent. in six years. In Aavaria the 
same class of offences rose in the same years from 165 
to 556—that is to say, 237 per cent. In Laden, during 
the period extending from 1872 to 1877, this class of 
crimes rose from 144 to 321,or 122 per cent. In Saxony, 
in the six years from 1871 to 1877, from 345 (489, 519, 
579, 607, 800) to 972, or 181 per cent. These numbers 
reveal a truly shocking state of things. 

‘In Prussia, in the eight older provinces, the number 
of investigations on account of crimes and misde- 
meanours rose, in the years 1877-18709, from 88,233 to 
145,587, or 65 per cent. Amongst these, the cases of 
perjury rose from 491 to IOI7, or 107 per cent. ; assaults, 
from 7883 to 18,361, or 133 per cent.; cases of robbery 
and extortion, from 168 to 504, or 200 per cent. In 
Saxony, in the years 1860-1877, the civil processes that 
actually came before the courts rose from 78,539 to 
138,817 ; the number of those condemned on account of 
crimes and misdemeanours rose from 9363 to 19,354, or 
more than the double. In Lavarza the sentences passed 
on account of perjury mounted, in the years 1872-1877, 


APPENDIX. 387 


from 166 to 431, or 159 per cent. In Wairttemberg, 
during the same years, the sentences of the different 
courts rose from 7987 to 14,655, or about 83 per cent. 
These numbers require no comment.—Luthardt, Dze 
modernen Weltanschauungen und thre praktischen Konse- 
guenzen, pp. 100 f. 

‘In Berlin there stood under folzce control of women 
who notoriously lived by prostitution in 1852, 695; 1853, 
980; 1854, 1156; 1855, 1338; 1856, 1338; 1866, 1360; 
1867, 1447; 1868, 1625; 1869, 1776. The number of 
those suspected of prostitution increased in the following 
manner :—In 1853, 4500; 1855,6000; 1863, 8000; 1864, 
10,000; 1865, 12,006; 1867, 12,491; 1868, 13,610; 1860, 
14,362; 1870, 11,382 (?); 1871, 15,064. The increase of 
prostitution amounted to double the increase in the 
population.’—J/dzd., p. 235. 

‘While the population of Berlin between 1858 and 
1863 increased 20 per cent., public prostitution increased 
during the same time more than 66 per cent.’—Oettingen, 
Moralstatistik, p. 456. 1868. 

The above, according to Luthardt, are some of the 
consequences of the prevailing atheistic materialism of 
Germany. It is said that Frederick the Great of Prussia, 
a most competent and impartial judge in such a matter, 
towards the close of his life expressed himself as follows : 
‘I would give my most glorious battle, if only I could 
again have religion and morality where I found them 
when I ascended the throne. I see well that I ought to 
have done more for this purpose. What would he say 
if he were living now? 


388 APPENDIX. 


NOTE XXL. p. 333. 
THE SADNESS OF ATHEISM. 


‘Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with 
those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the “new 
faith” is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour 
of “the old,” I am not ashamed to confess that, with this 
virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its 
soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the 
precept “to work while it is day” will doubtless but gain 
an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning 
of the words, “the night cometh when no man can work,” 
yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of 
the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that 
creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of 
existence as now I find it, at such times I shall ever feel 
it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my 
nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my 
intelligence not being sufficiently advanced to meet the 
requirements of the age, or whether it be due to the 
memory of those sacred associations which to me at 
least were the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but 
feel that for me, and for others who think as I do, there 
is a dreadful truth in these words of Hamilton,—philo- 
sophy having become a meditation, not merely of death 
but annihilation, the precept kxow thyself has become 
transformed into the terrible oracle to CEdipus—* Mayest 
thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.” ’—Physicus, 
A Candid Examination of Theism, p. 114. 

‘Those who flatter themselves that they have shaken 
off the horror [of religion as a superstition], find a colder, 
more petrifying incubus, that of annihilation, settling 
down upon them in its place, so that one of them cries out, 
“Qh! take away annihilation, that abyss, and give us 
back Satan.” ’—WNatural Religion, p. 239. See also the 


APPENDIX. 389 


cases of Jouffroy, as given by Naville, Ze Christ, p. 17; 
and of Renan, Recollections, pp. 293 f. 

How very different the spirit inspired by the religion 
of the Bible, as we find it expressed by the ancient saints : 
‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none 
upon earth that I desire beside Thee! My flesh and 
my heart faileth ; but God is the strength of my heart, 
and my portion for ever.” ‘Death is swallowed up in 
victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where 
is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us 
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ !’ 


INDEX. 


——() —— 


ADDISON on religion in England last 
century, 2, 341. 

Age of the earth, 351. 

Agnosticism, 5. 

Alexandrian manuscript, 78. 

Aristotle, fate of his later works, 
95: 

Atheism often springs from moral 
causes, 93; its loneliness, 333, 
388. 

Atheists, many real, 8. 

Authenticity of the New Testament, 
73: 


BARNABAS, testimony to Matthew, 
139. 

Basilides cited as witness, 102. 

Baxter on inspiration, 353. 

Baur, his view as to the super- 
natural, 15; testimony to Paul’s 
unquestioned Epistles, 110; on 
the resurrection of Christ, 238. 

Belief founded not upon compre- 
hension, but evidence, 36. 

Bible, special object for which given, 
68. 

Blackstone on religion in London 
churches, 2. 


Bolingbroke on the death of Christ, 


287, note. 


‘Book-revelation,’ notimpossible, 56. 
Buddha did not claim to work 
miracles, 165. 


Carrns, Principal, comparison of 
the Christ of the Synoptics with 
the Christ of John, 252. 

Calderwood, Professor, evolution 
not inconsistent with Theism, 
25; the Bible not a science- 
revelation, 343. 

Carlyle on the power of faith, 325. 

Certainty, reasonable, attainable 
without inspiration, 63, 65. 

Christ, as set forth in Paul’s unques- 
tioned Epistles, 124; only founder 
of a world-religion who claimed to 
work miracles, 165 ; His resurrec- 
tion, 223; the fountain of modern 
history, 248; peculiar relation to 
Christianity, 249; vain attempts 
to explain Him away, 2515 His 
sinlessness, 255; power of His 
personality, 259; His teaching, 
260; His kingdom, 265 ; univer- 
sality of His purpose, 266; con- 
quers by love, 268; His plan 
complete from the first, 269; His 
divinity, 275; testimonies to His 
character, 367. 


392 


INDEX, 


Christianity, its relation and duty | Development hypothesis not neces- 


towards science, 29 ; adjusts itself 
to real discoveries, 31 ; only great 
religion authenticated by miracles, 
165 victorious struggle with 
ancient heathenism, 312 ; modern 
progress compared with ancient 
progress, 3145; its power unspent, 
317; change produced by it in 
the ancient world, 320; sources 
and causes of its power, 326. 

Church, continuity of, 91; Paul’s 
teaching in regard to, 127; its 
planting, 291; its universal des- 
tiny, 292; its corruption prophe- 
sied, 293. 

Clement of Alexandria cited as 
witness, 88. 

Clement of Rome cited as witness, 
98. 

Clementine Homilies, testimony to 
John’s Gospel, 143. 

Clifford, Professor, on loneliness of 
Atheism, 333. 

Confucius did not claim to work 
miracles, 165. 

Congruity, argument from, 359. 

Convergence of Christian evidences, 
384. 

Corinthians, First and Second, un- 
questioned Epistles of Paul, rro. 
Creation, Bible account of, 20; 

order of, 23. 
Criticism, battle of, unavoidable, 


155. 


DARWIN, evolution not inconsistent 
with Theism, 347. 

Davison on independence and con- 
vergence of the Christian evidences, 


384. 


sarily inconsistent with Theism, 
25, 344; only a mode of opera- 
tion, 26; not yet an ascertained 
fact of science, 28, 348. 

Difficulties in religion, whence they 
arise, 37; mode of treating, 42; 
no system without difficulties, 47 ; 
their uses, 48. 

Doctrines of Christianity, taught in 
Paul’s unquestioned Epistles, 126; 
run up into Christ, 249. 

Du Bois-Reymond, thought a new 
beginning in nature, 351. 


EARTH, age of, 351. 

Ephraem’s Commentary on Tatian’s 
Diatessaron discovered, 146. 

Evidence must correspond to sub- 
ject, 4, 76, 225; what kind to 
be expected for the Christian 
miracles, 190. 

Evolution not necessarily inconsis- 
tent with Theism, 25, 344; only 
an hypothesis, 348. 

Ewald on the character of Christ, 
370. 

‘Experience,’ Hume’s argument 
against miracles from, 180; has 
nothing to say against the Chris- 
tian miracles, 187, 


FATHERS, their mode of quoting the 
New Testament, 353. 

Flint, Professor, on limits of physical 
science, 343. 

Forgery of the New Testament in 
the second century impossible, 
104. 

Fulness of the times, 290. 


INDEX. 


GALATIANS an unquestioned Epistle 
of Paul, 110. 

Genesis, first chapter of, 20. 

Germany, apparent decline 
morality in, 386. 

Gibbon on the number of the early 
Christians, 315. 

Godet on connection of the miracles 
with the gospel history, 194. 

Gospels, table of dates assigned to, 
153. 

Greg, W. R., on character of Christ, 
378. 


of 


HASE on the Socrates of Xenophon 
and Plato, 366. 

Healings, gifts of, 207. 

Heretics, their testimony to the New 
Testament, 100. 

Hilgenfeld, New Testament books 
accepted by him, 134, I51. 

Hippolytus cited as witness, 86; 
testimony of his ‘ Refutation of 
all Heresies’ to John, 141. 

Hodge on inspiration, 352. 

Holtzmann, New Testament books 
assigned to first century, 152. 

Hume's argument against the credi- 
bility of miracles discussed, 180 ; 
a perfect moral character contrary 
to ‘experience,’ 383. 

Huxley on spontaneous generation, 
349. 

Hymnals of the Church prove its 
real unity, 71. 


INCARNATION of God needed by 
man, 329. 

India, progress of missions in, 316, 

Inspiration, a theory of, not neces- 
sary at the outset, 58; three 


eff 


positions in regard to, 61; danger 
of pressing a rigid view at first 
too strongly, 67 ; quotation from 
Hodge, 352; from Baxter, 353. 
Irenzeus cited as witness, 83. 


JANET, evolution not inconsistent 
with Theism, 345. 

Jerusalem, its destruction prophe- 
sied, 295. 

Jews, their monotheism, 280; won- 
derful preservation, 282; expecta- 
tion of a Messiah, 288. 

John’s testimony to Christ’s resurrec- 
tion, 233. 

Josephus on the Jewish expectation 
of a Messiah, 288, note. 

Justin Martyr cited as witness, 96. 


Ketmm on the expectation of a 
Messiah, 289; on the character 
of Christ, 369. 

Keshub Chunder Sen on the char- 
acter of Christ, 374. 

Kingdom of God, a new idea, 


265. 


LANGE on the number of the early 
Christians, 314. 

Latin version, ancient, cited as wit- 
ness, 85. 

Lecky, W. E. H., on the state of 
religion in England last century, 
341; character of Christ, 379. 

Lord’s day, a proof of Christ’s re- 
surrection, 240. 

Lord’s Supper, argument from, 296. 

Lotze on the mode of divine action 
in a miracle, 178, 3573 evolution 
not inconsistent with Theism, 


347+ 


394 


Luthardt on the decline of morality 
in Germany, 323, 386. 


M‘CosH, evolution not necessarily 
inconsistent with Theism, 344. 

Man a religious being, 52. 

Manuscripts of the New Testament, 
78. 

Marcion cited as witness, 101 ; his 
gospel a mutilated Luke, 148. 

Martyrs for a fact, 120. 

Materialism, the common form of 
modern unbelief, 6. 

Materialists, many real, 8. 

“Mighty deeds,’ meaning of expres- 
sion, 209. 

Mill, J. S., evolution not inconsis- 
tent with creation, 25; on miracles 
as a ‘violation of law,’ 356; on 
the character of Christ, 376. 

Milman on the number of the early 
Christians, 315. 

Miracles, description of, 158, 175; 
not a ‘violation of the laws of 
nature,’ 160, 3563; fall in with 
the highest order, 161 ; essential 
part of Christianity, 163; proper 
credentials of a revelation, 169; 
their object, 171; neither impos- 
sible, nor incredible, 168, 172; 
summary of evidence for, 185 ; 
‘signs,’ 1963; what they imply, 
197; personal testimony to, 199 ; 
testimony of Paul to, 202; mode 
of divine intervention in, 357; 
naturally to be expected of Christ, 
361. 

Missions, their modern compared 
with their ancient progress, 314. 
Mohammed did not claim to work 

miracles, 166, 


INDEX. 


Monotheism of the Jews, 280. 

Montesquieu on state of religion in 
England last century, 341. 

Moral nature, a guide to religious 
truth, 337. 

Muratorian Canon cited, 85. 

Mystery does not imply uncertainty, 


45. 


NAPOLEON on character of Christ, 
381. 

Natural Religion quoted, 223, 362, 
388. 

Nature not enough to meet man’s 
religious wants, 55. 

Negative criticism, recent reverses 
Ofi4 7 

New Testament, authenticity of, 73; 
ground on which it is generally 
accepted at first, 74; according 
to Baur about one-fourth genuine, 
137; about three-fourths accord- 
ing to present negative criticism, 
154. 


PAPIAS cited as witness, 97. 

Parker, Theodore, on miracles, 167 ; 
on the character of Christ, 273, 
375: 

Pasteur on spontaneous generation, 
348. 

Paul, his unquestioned Epistles, 110; 


character as a witness, 114; 
testimony to miracles, 121, 203; 
and to Christ’s resurrection, 
234. 


Persecution by so-called Christians 
not an argument against Chris- 
tianity, 324. 

Personality of Christ, unique, 248. 

Peshito cited as witness, 89. 


INDEX. 


Peter’s testimony to Christ’s resur- 
rection, 232. 

‘Physicus’ on sadness of Atheism, 
388. 

Plato’s picture of the truly just man, 
366. 

Polycarp cited as witness, 97. 

Powell, Baden, on miracles, 167 ; 
on the proper sphere of science, 
343+ 

Pressensé, evolution not necessarily 
inconsistent with Theism, 346. 

Probabilities, Theory of, stated and 
applied to ‘Converging Lines,’ 
301; and to the testimony for 
Christ’s resurrection, 363. 

Prophecy full of Christ, 286. 


QUOTATIONS from the New Testa- 
ment found in the Fathers, 353. 


RELIGION, state of, in England last 
century, 2, 3415 necessary to 
national welfare, 323. 

Religious instincts point to a revela- 
tion, 53. 

Renan, his view as to the super- 
natural, 16; testimony to Paul’s 
unquestioned Epistles, 111; other 
Pauline Epistles accepted by him, 
134; conditions of a satisfactory 
miracle, 192; New ‘Testament 
books assigned to first century, 
151; on the character of Christ, 
373: 

Resurrection of Christ, 223; what 
it implies, 245; its alleged unim- 
portance, 362; testimony for, 
tested by the Theory of Probabili- 
ties, 363. 

Revelation an acknowledged work 


395 


of John, 110, 1313 its testimony 
to Christ and Christian doctrine, 
132. 

Revelation needed, 167. 

Richter on the character of Christ, 
382. 

Roman world, moral state of, 319. 

Romans an unquestioned Epistle of 
Paul, 110. 

Rousseau on the character of Christ, 


371. 


SACRED books, uniqueness of our, 
281. 

Schaff on the number of the early 
Christians, 315. 

Science, physical, cannot reach reli- 
gious truth, 17; its special instru- 
ments and field, 17; obligations 
of theology to, 29. 

Scientific men not generally material- 
ists, II. 

Scrivener, on patristic quotations of 
the New Testament, 355. 

Sects in the Church do not imply 
uncertainty as to Christian truth, 
70. 

‘Signs and wonders and mighty 
deeds,’ meaning discussed, 212. 

Sinaitic manuscript, 79. 

Socrates of Xenophon and Plato, 
253, 306; compared with Christ, 
371. 

Specialists of authority only in their 
special field, 13, 342. 

Spectral illusions as a means of 
explaining Christ’s resurrection, 
243. 

Spencer, Herbert, his agnosticism, 
5; ‘Creeds not priestly inven- 
tions,’ 53. 


396 


Spirit not less clearly known than 
matter, 38. 

Spontaneous generation, 348. 

Strauss, view as to the supernatural, 
I5; statement as to the import- 
ance of Christ’s resurrection, 224 ; 
on the swoon- hypothesis, 242; 
testimony to the character of 
Christ, 368. 

Supernatural Religion, its testimony 
to Paul’s unquestioned Epistles, 
112; Marcion’s gospel admitted 
to be a mutilated Luke, 150; on 
the character of Christ, 380. 

‘Survival of the fittest,’ 310. 

Swoon - hypothesis as a means of 
explaining Christ’s resurrection, 
241. 

Synoptics, their representation of 
Christ compared with that of John, 
252. 


TAIT, Professor, his testimony as to 
scientific men, 12; as to age of 
the earth, 351. 

Tatian’s Diatessaron, proved to be a 
harmony of the four gospels, 146 ; 
Arabic translation discovered, 147. 

Taylor, Isaac, on argument from 


congruity, 359. 


INDEX. 


Tertullian cited as witness, 87. 

Tongues, gift of, 207. 

Trench, miracles to be expected of 
Christ220%e0ae 

Tiibingen school, its origin, 110; 
falling away from its original 
position, 133, 153; no longer 
existing at Tiibingen, 134, note. 

Tyndall, Professor, on material 
Atheism, 13; on scientific special- 
ists dealing with theology, 342; 
on spontaneous generation, 349. 


UHLHORN on the number of the 
early Christians, 314. 

Unbelief, causes of modern, 3. 

Unity of the Church, 70. 

‘Unknowable’ of agnosticism not 
really unknown, 5. 

Unseen Universe, mode of divine 
action in a miracle, 179, 358. 


VATICAN manuscript, 79. 

Virchow on spont*neous generation, 
348 ; on the des. ent of man from 
the ape, 349. 


WALLACE on descent of man from 
the ape, 350. 


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